


A Song With Two Verses

by YouAreInAComaWakeUp (Nikanaiko)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - 80s Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Band Fic, Cringey Racism, Extremely Vague References to One Case of Off-Screen Masturbation, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) are Adoptive Siblings, M/M, Minor Hunk/Ryan Kinkade, Minor Matt Holt/Shiro, Pure cheese, Time Shenanigans, Touch Deprivation, Urban Fantasy, homophobic parents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24992734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikanaiko/pseuds/YouAreInAComaWakeUp
Summary: Keith Kogane has everything he's ever needed. He has his Walkman, Casey Kasem on the radio every Saturday, an escape from his parents, and, most importantly, he has his brother back. But things take a turn for the bizarre when he installs a mirror in his apartment and sees more than his reflection looking back.The figure he finds in the mirror is strange. Loud, obnoxious, too handsome to be healthy, and...Oh, yeah.From the future.There's also that.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 462
Kudos: 390





	1. Through the Looking Glass

It was spring. Technically. June 18th _was_ spring. It just didn't feel like it.

Though maybe that had less to do with the oppressive sun and more to do with how worked up Lance had gotten fighting for his life.

The rear window of Hunk's truck was wide open, sending the soothing tones of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to the bed of the truck, filtered through Hunk's screams.

Sweat made trails from Lance's temples to the back of his neck, loosening the grips of his fingers.

The boot digging into Lance's throat pushed him farther over the edge of Hunk's tailgate. Any farther, and there was no chance of him hanging on with just one hand. He'd fall, and at the speed Hunk was going, Lance wasn't sure he'd get back up.

"I'm asking you one last time." Lance's attacker leaned down, voice muffled by their helmet. "Hand it over, and perhaps you will survive."

"Lance!" cried Hunk, helpless from the safety of the cab.

Lance tightened his grip around the precious artifact he held in his hand, more precious than gold, more precious than his own life.

He closed his eyes.

He clenched his teeth.

He took a breath.

And he--

_Whoa, okay! Stop right there. Record scratch. You're probably wondering how I wound up in this situation._

_I know, I know, it's cliche, but hear me out. Let's do this right, by starting at the-- Well, not the beginning. The beginning is a long-ass time ago, and I don't even know how most of it goes. So let's start at where it all began for me, about a year ago._

_Let's start with the mirror._

* * *

It was spring. Technically. March 23rd _was_ spring. It just didn't feel like it.

Certainly not for Keith, who had been out in the cold all night only to wind up stranded beneath a fire escape, throwing a chunk of brick at a ladder in the hopes that it would fall.

"Come on..."

_Clank!_

Keith bent low to grab the chunk as it clattered back to the ground. It felt more like ice in his hands than stone, not that he could feel much of anything anymore. Normally, his gloves did a fantastic job of keeping him warm, fingerless or not, but six hours on the back of a motorcycle meant accepting his fated role as the wind's bitch.

With a huff, Keith chucked the brick at the ladder one more time. 

Again, it rattled the iron before uselessly falling to the ground.

Keith picked it up with a growl.

_"Come on!"_

With all his might, he reeled back and sent the brick flying. It hit the ladder with a ringing clang that seemed to drill into the concrete beneath Keith's feet, and the ladder struck the earth.

Keith smirked, triumphant. He'd never been happier to be rendered temporarily deaf.

His boots shook the ladder noisily with every heated footstep as he sprinted up to the fifth floor.

Perhaps he should have been more careful about being quiet, perhaps he should have been wary about being caught, but, well... Perhaps there was a part of him that _wanted_ to get caught.

Keith hit the top and crouched in front of the waiting window. With a bit of wiggling from his knife, the screen popped open, and after that, the glass pane was a breeze to slide up.

Keith crawled through, one hand braced against the windowsill, and planted one boot firmly on the carpet inside the apartment.

He raised his second foot to join the first, and--

_click_

The lights turned on, painting the living room in a warm, golden glow.

Keith froze.

That thing about part of him wanting to get caught? Yeah, no, that was a lie. He did not want to get caught. He really, really did not want to get caught.

"Keith?"

Keith hung his head and cursed behind his teeth.

He pulled his second leg through and set it on the carpet.

"Um... Hi, Shiro."

* * *

_TELL ME CAN YOU FEEL IT_

_TELL ME CAN YOU FEEL IT_

_TELL ME CAN YOU FEEL IT_

_THE HEAT IS ON_

Lance tapped his toes to the beat, high-tops pat-pat-patting the linoleum floor of his kitchen.

He pressed a button on the side of his phone to turn up the volume, bobbing his head, feeling Pidge's saxophone in his bones, Hunk's bass in his blood, Allura's guitar in his heart.

He dropped his phone on the counter and grabbed two of Hunk's wooden spoons off the wall. He drummed in time, thumping the counter with a simple beat.

"Hey! Did Pidge finish mixing it?"

Hunk crossed the threshold from the hallway into the kitchen. Lance watched his eyes land on the wooden spoons, then roll.

He stole his utensils back and used one to thump the crown of Lance's head.

"Ow!" Lance's hands flew to his injured skull. "I object to this behavior! This is roommate abuse!"

"Maybe my roommate shouldn't have been using the things we eat with as drumsticks." Hunk tossed the utensils in the sink and snatched Lance's phone off the counter. "Oh, wow, this is just a WIP?"

"I know, right?" Lance looked at his screen over Hunk's shoulder, the slight to his head quickly forgotten. "I don't even know what else they want to do to it. It sounds perfect to me."

"Don't tell Pidge that," said Hunk. "The last time I tried, they chewed me out for a whole hour about balancing and the importance of getting the reverb just right to make a song sound 'truly retro'." 

Lance scoffed. "They're such a hipster."

"Yeah, don't tell them that, either." Hunk returned Lance's phone to his hand. "By the way, speaking of Pidge, Allura pulled some strings and they're checking out a potential location this afternoon. Want to tag along for the sound test?"

"That depends," said Lance. "Will Allura be there?" He wiggled his eyebrows.

Hunk groaned and gave him a good-natured but pointed thump to the chest. "Could you not be weird about her for five seconds?" 

"Come on," said Lance. "Allura loves me."

"Yeah," said Hunk. "As a friend. But I promise she doesn't love the constant flirting. Either ask her out or stop harassing her."

Lance made for the coat rack by the door and grabbed his own off the hook. "Oh, please--"

Hunk grabbed it back. "Seriously, buddy. We're not going unless you promise to tone it down."

Lance shrugged, smiling placatingly. "Yeah, sure, I promise."

* * *

"Keith. Wake up. I brought breakfast."

Keith pulled his blankets over his face.

"Nope, we're not doing that."

The blankets were abruptly yanked down, forcing Keith to blink blearily at the offender who tore him from sleep.

"I realize you were out all night, and I sympathize. That's why I gave you twelve hours. But we need to talk."

Keith's heart twisted in his chest.

Shiro. Right.

Shiro set a styrofoam cup of coffee on the end table by Keith's head, next to a paper bag that was already waiting.

Cautiously, Keith sat up and reached for the bag. A quick peek inside revealed a bagel and a doughnut.

"They're both yours." Shiro took the now-empty seat beside Keith on the couch. "I just didn't want to give you pure sugar."

"I'm not going to get a sugar rush. I'm not a kid anymore."

"I'm not so sure about that." Shiro leaned forward, propping his arm on his knee. "Why did you run away?"

Keith froze, bagel halting halfway to his mouth. The truth tasted bitter behind his teeth. "...I didn't." He set his bagel back into its bag. He didn't feel like eating it anymore. "I got kicked out."

"Kicked out?" asked Shiro. "Why?"

Keith clasped his hands over his bare knees, just past the edges of the boxers he'd slept in. "...Same reason you were."

"What...?"

Keith hung his head, eyes on his bare feet. "I know I should have said something back then. Or... Or done something. I wanted to, when they started-- ...But I didn't. I chickened out. I'm sorry."

Shiro didn't say a word.

Keith shrunk into himself. "Look, I don't expect you to forgive me. The whole reason I broke in was just so I'd get some sleep before you found me and kicked me out. And if that's what you're going to do now, I don't blame you. I'm not going t--"

Shiro grabbed Keith by the arm. For a split second, the idea that Shiro was going to punch him ran through Keith's head. It wasn't until Keith found himself pressed into Shiro's chest that he remembered Shiro had no second hand to punch him with.

And it wasn't until Keith felt Shiro start to shake that he realized Shiro was crying.

"Shiro, what--"

"I thought I'd never see you again. I thought you hated me."

Keith's eyes widened. His heart softened. And nervously, he wrapped his arms around Shiro's back.

"When you never wrote back, I--"

"You thought I took their side?" asked Keith. "After everything you've done for me? Are you serious? Why would I ever choose _them_ over _you?_ I _wanted_ to write! I _tried!_ I just-- I couldn't figure out how without getting caught. I dug your first letter out of the trash at two in the morning-- I've been keeping it under my mattress for the past two years! I've been sneaking every letter I could into my pockets before Mom and Dad saw them in the mailbox-- It's the only way I even knew where you lived." 

Shiro latched tighter onto Keith. "I can't believe, after all this time..." 

"Who cares how long it's been?" asked Keith. "They might have decided you're not their son, but they can't make it so you're not my brother. I don't need blood or some stupid papers for that." 

Shiro grudgingly sat up. His eyes were red. Keith felt like he should have been crying, too.

"How did you even get here?" asked Shiro.

"My bike," said Keith.

"Your _bike?_ " asked Shiro. "For _six hours?_ How did you make it that far on one tank of gas?"

"Uh..." Keith winced. "I didn't? I...strapped a gas can to the back of my seat."

"You _what?! Keith--!_ "

"I made it, didn't I?"

"Why didn't you call?! I have a friend with a truck-- I would have met you halfway and put your bike in the back!"

"How was I supposed to call? Mom and Dad kicked me out!"

"I meant with a payphone!"

"I c--! ...Oh."

"Yeah, 'Oh.'"

Shiro dragged his hand through his bangs, which looked a little more white than the last time Keith had known him. "Jesus, Keith. We've got enough in common without adding 'amputee' to the list. Can you just ask for help in the future?"

Keith crossed his arms. "...Yeah. I can do that."

Shiro rubbed the scar on the bridge of his nose. "Good. That's all I ask. As long as you get a job."

"I will!" said Keith urgently. "I wasn't going to just--"

"I know," assured Shiro. "You're not irresponsible. Reckless, but not irresponsible."

With a sharp sniff, Shiro stood from the couch. "Do you want some milk to go with your breakfast? Or-- I could whip up some eggs or--" 

"I'm fine," said Keith. "Thanks, Shiro."

Still teary, Shiro smiled, and he reached down to squeeze Keith's shoulder.

"Welcome home."

* * *

"Nah, we found it in no time. But I _would_ like a map, 'cause baby, I keep getting lost in your eyes."

Allura stared at Lance for a long moment, eyes narrowed, then slammed the door in his face.

Hunk put his hands on his hips.

Lance shrugged theatrically. "What? She walked right into that one!" 

Hunk opened the door. "Let it go, man."

"But she--!" Hunk stepped inside, and for the second time, Lance found the door slammed in his face.

Grumbling, he followed Hunk in.

The building smelled funny. Like popcorn that had been left out to gather dust. But that didn't matter. While Pidge's equipment could pick up many things the human ear couldn't, "smell" was not one of those things.

Lance pushed past a wooden door at the end of the hall and found the tech in question hunched over a console they'd clearly already made some...adjustments to.

"Good," said Pidge, not looking up. "You're here. Go join Hunk and Allura in the booth." They pointed through the window above the console at Hunk and Allura on the other side.

Lance, in turn, pointed at the open panel through which Pidge had disemboweled the console. "Hey, are you allowed to--?"

Pidge looked over their shoulder with a glare that could have killed a man at full power.

Lance shoved his pointing finger into his pocket. "Right. I'll just go." 

He entered the booth and took his place between Hunk and Allura at the microphone already provided.

Hunk adjusted the strap of his bass.

Allura plucked out an arpeggio on the Les Paul she'd plugged in, surrounding Lance in sound he felt in his feet.

He adjusted the height of his microphone.

"Okay," called Pidge through an intercom. "I'm going to feed you some drums, then I want to hear Hunk, Allura, and Lance in that order. Then all at once."

"What about you?" asked Lance.

"I tested my sax while I was waiting for you guys to show up. Sounds fine. I want to hear you guys now."

Allura strummed a chord. "And why should we ever deprive you of what you want?"

"You heard the lady. Hunk, you're up."

* * *

It was a cold, wintery day. Keith's leather jacket, while warm enough, did little to resist the wind that crawled into his sleeves while he drove. He was just glad Shiro moved to a dense city, which meant any job Keith was going to get would be packed into the center of town, where he could spend most of his time parked at stoplights, willing the warmth to return to his bones as he scanned the windows for Help Wanted signs on the way to the location Shiro had recommended.

Keith found the record store easily. Its sign stood high and colorful, proudly hand-painted, between a tattoo parlor and a pizza delivery station.

He parked his bike on the street in front, paid the meter, and stepped inside.

The bell on the door had just rung behind him when a girl with a mohawk and a dead look in her eye looked up from her magazine and gave Keith a once-over.

She blew a bubble with her bubble gum, and it deflated slowly as she took him in. "You're here for the job, right?"

"Uh..." Keith furrowed his brow. "Yes?"

"Good," said Mohawk. "Do you know the difference between Icehouse and Starship?"

"Yeah," said Keith warily.

"A vinyl record and a cassette?"

"Obviously."

"A VHS and an 8-track?"

" _Yes._ "

"Can you work mornings?"

"Sure?"

"Good, you're hired." Mohawk returned to her magazine. "Be here at eight o'clock tomorrow."

Keith stumbled. He looked around at the yellowing blinds, the chipped plywood displays of records, the plastic racks of cassette tapes, and the black rug just inside the door, the rug he hadn't even stepped off of.

"...What, really? You don't even know my name yet."

Mohawk shrugged. "You're not made of sunshine and daisies. You came in on a motorcycle. You don't make me want to throw up. Welcome to Moon Swap Records. Don't make me regret it."

"Okay..." Keith reached awkwardly for the door behind him. "Should... Do you want my phone number, or--?"

Mohawk fixed him with a deadpan stare. "Tomorrow. Eight o'clock." 

"Got it..." Keith opened the door behind him and left cautiously, feeling like he'd just been pranked.

That was...good? Probably? But there was no harm in picking up a few more applications on the way home, just in case.

By the time Keith returned to Shiro's apartment, he had a small stack of applications tucked under his arm.

This time, he came in through the door.

Boxes littered the living room. There was a bookshelf propped against a wall he hadn't seen before, and it was already stocked with books and tapes. Piles of newspapers and knickknacks covered the coffee table.

Shiro emerged from the hallway, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. "Back already?"

"The record place hired me on the spot," explained Keith. "I think." He set his spare applications on the kitchen table. "I stopped by some other places on the way back just in case they change their mind, but--"

"Nah." Shiro sniffed and wiped the sweat from his upper lip. "I know Yumi. If she says you got the job, you got the job."

Keith eyed Shiro's worn-down appearance, the sweat seeping into the front of his tanktop and sticking strands of his hair to his temples. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," said Shiro. "Just winded. I've been cleaning out the spare room. It was going to be Adam's, initially, but... You know what happened. I've just been using it as storage since, but now that you're here, I decided it's time I finally finished unpacking." 

"You...never unpacked?"

Shiro just shrugged. "It wasn't easy, losing my family and my boyfriend at the same time. But I have one of those back now. I should act like it."

"I'll help," said Keith. "But maybe we should eat dinner first. You look like you could use a break."

Shiro smiled. "Sounds good." He walked to the same window Keith had broken in through and cracked it open for some fresh air before weaving his way through boxes to reach the fridge.

Keith smiled at the open window.

The sun was coming out.

* * *

"What happened to your hand, Pidgey?"

"Hm?" Pidge looked at their hand, at the layers of bandages wrapped from their palm to their wrist. "Oh, that. Kitchen accident."

"See," said Hunk, juggling several paper fast food bags a few steps above them on the stairway. "This is why you leave the cooking to me."

"Of course," said Pidge. "What was I thinking?"

Hunk opened the stairwell door with his back and Lance followed him into the hallway. "Did you really need to wrap up your whole hand?"

"It was a big kitchen accident," said Pidge.

"Have you considered maybe seeing a hospital?"

"You wanna pay for my medical bills?"

Lance winced. "Point taken." He turned his attention to Hunk. "Hey, big guy, are you sure you have all that?"

"Have you ever known me to drop food?" asked Hunk.

"There was that time you spilled lo mein on the floor and cried about it for an hour," said Pidge.

"Mh, good point." Hunk nodded at the door. "Could one of you...?"

"On it." Lance dashed ahead, pulled out his keys, and opened the door to apartment 5E, holding it open for both the big man with food in his arms and the little injured enby who would have murdered Lance in his sleep with no remorse if they ever heard him call them "little".

A golden gleam shone from the window that led to the old fire escape. 

"Oh, hey! The sun's coming out!" Lance ran past his friends to the living room and threw the window open.

"About time," said Pidge. "I thought it was going to be gross all day."

"For real," said Hunk, laying food out on the kitchen counters. "Come on, Sun. It's spring. Act like it."

Lance slinked to the kitchen and picked up his drink. "So now that we have a real studio, what's the next step on our road to becoming real rock stars? Touring? Hiring a drummer so Hunk doesn't have to pull double duty?"

"I'd like to start putting out proper music videos," said Pidge. "Like, with actual camera work and sets, not just a tripod in my mom's garage."

"Oh, man, yeah," said Hunk. "We could be the next OK Go or something."

"All right," said Lance, "so all in favor of our next investment being a cameraman, say aye."

"Aye," droned both Hunk and Pidge.

"All opposed?"

Lance paused dramatically, holding a hand up to his ear as if waiting for a mysterious fourth person to pose an opposition.

"...The motion passes. We're getting a cameraman, enbies and gentlemen."

"What about Allura?" asked Pidge. "Doesn't she get a vote?"

"Maybe if Lance didn't scare her off..." grumbled Hunk.

"Hey!" protested Lance. "I don't scare her!"

"You'd scare me," said Pidge.

"Ugh!" squawked Lance. "Just for that, I'm not sharing my tater tots with you." He rummaged through the paper bags, searching for his order.

"Seriously, though, Lance?" Hunk sat on the couch and leaned over his knees to point at Lance with the hand that held his drink. "It's getting creepy. Make a move, a real move, or stop bothering her." 

Lance popped a tater tot between his teeth, turned around to show it off, and bit through it like a guillotine. Half the tater tot fell from his mouth to the linoleum at his feet.

Hunk sighed. "That's just wasteful, dude."

Lance shrugged a shoulder and popped another tot into his mouth. "That's what you get for calling me creepy."

"It's true, though," said Pidge. "The only reason Allura puts up with it at all is that she cares about you too much as a friend to tell you to fuck off."

"You don't know that!"

"Then ask her out," said Hunk. "Get rejected, get the closure you need, and get over her."

Lance's paper bag crinkled in his hand. "For your information, I'm playing hard to get."

"More like hard to stomach," said Pidge.

"What do you know, shrimp?"

"'Shrimp'? Really? Is that all you got?"

Lance rolled up the end of his bag. "That's it! If either of you need me, I'll be in my room with the only person in the world who appreciates me like I deserve."

"Who?" asked Hunk. "Your reflection?"

"Exactly!"

Lance stormed into his room and slammed the door.

"Creepy," he mumbled. "I'm not creepy. You're only creepy if you can't accept rejection. I can handle rejection. Allura hasn't rejected me. And when-- _If!_ If she does, I'll take it like a man. I can be just Allura's friend if that's what I have to be, I just don't want to. That's normal. _I'm_ normal." He glared through his door. "Not creepy."

Lance made his way to his bed and flopped across it, fast food bag on his lap. He glared at his own reflection as he ate, appraising his own angry face. He was good-looking, right? Nice? Friendly? Confident? There was no reason Allura shouldn't like him. Those groans when he flirted with her were just how Allura flirted back. They were playful. Pidge and Hunk just didn't get it.

Lance plucked his corndog from his bag and bit into it plain. "I can get anyone I want," he grumbled around a mouthful of cornbread. "Put anyone in front of me right now. I'll have her swept off her feet by next summer."

That was the exact moment it happened. Something strange, something unexpected, something inexplicable.

His reflection faded from the mirror...

...and the universe put someone in front of him.

Lance's corndog slipped from his fingers and hit his lap. 

"What the _cheese...?_ "

* * *

"Here?"

"Yeah, go ahead and drop it."

With a great deal of struggle, Keith pulled back on his end of the cot, Shiro on the other, and it slowly, grudgingly opened.

Keith sat on the edge, relieved, and looked around his room. He didn't have much yet. Keith hadn't even been able to fit much into his saddlebags. Just a few sets of clothes, Shiro's letters, and his Walkman. Shiro had offered Keith a clock radio and now a cot, but...that was all he had.

Keith's room was still mostly empty, and he knew it would be for a while.

"It's slow," said Shiro. "Getting a normal life back, that is. There's a Five & Dime on the edge of town. We can get some essentials from there for cheap. Combs, deodorant, whatever else you'll need. They won't be the best quality, but they'll last you until you can afford something better, and they'll be yours. We'll be able to thrift some clothes, too. And don't worry about money yet. I'll make sure you have everything you need until you can take care of yourself. You aren't the first person to get kicked out by your parents, and you won't be the last."

"Thanks, Shiro, but you don't have to reassure me. I'm okay." Keith shrugged. "If they hadn't thrown me out, I _would_ have run away. I had enough of them the night you left."

Shiro set his hand on Keith's shoulder. "Well... Either way, it's their loss. It's good to have you here."

Keith found himself smiling, feeling truly warm for the first time after two cold, dark years. "It's good to be here."

Shiro began to retract his arm, and Keith, seeing the look in his eye, rolled his own.

"Okay, one more."

Shiro didn't hesitate to take him up on his offer. He hugged Keith so tight it was as if he thought Keith would disappear if he let go. Not that Keith was complaining.

"You're going to be late for your mushy love song block," he mumbled.

"No, I'm not," said Shiro. "I always leave an hour early."

"Of course you do."

"But you're right. I should still get going." Shiro pulled back. "You'll probably be asleep by the time I get back. Or you should be. You have work in the morning. But you can help yourself to anything in the fridge while I'm gone. This is your home now."

"Okay," said Keith, tired, but bright.

Shiro tousled his hair like he was a little kid and disappeared into the hallway.

Keith listened to Shiro's footsteps until he heard the apartment door close, and he immediately flopped back onto his cot and rolled over. 

He grabbed the pillow Shiro had given him off the floor and pressed his face into it.

It smelled like mothballs and dust.

And Keith was thrilled about it.

He had his brother back. He had a warm place to call home. He had food in his belly. He even had his own space. He thought being rejected by one's own family was supposed to be traumatic. But Keith had never been happier. Everything he ever wanted or needed was in Altea, and Keith was finally there with him. His radio show would even start playing on the clock radio in a couple of hours just as a reminder.

Keith actually felt....safe. He forgot what that felt like. He forgot that was even a _feeling._

He smiled to himself and turned his face to press his cheek into the pillow, that hazy warmth Keith was slowly getting used to settling in his chest.

_"Pidge! Get in here! I know it was you!"_

Keith raised his head and frowned at the window.

Apartment 5E was five floors up. He shouldn't have been able to hear a voice through a closed window, no matter how faint, but Keith could have sworn he'd just heard something come from outside.

Curious, Keith stood from his cot and opened the window. He had to slide the screen out of the way and stick his head out to see the street below, but he got the view he needed of the sidewalk.

There were... _people._ A couple of kids passing a kickball back and forth, a woman strolling by with her groceries... But no one who matched the adult, male voice he'd heard.

Keith crossed his arms across the windowsill.

Weird... He could have _sworn..._

Well, whatever. It was probably just someone he'd missed by taking too long to open the window, or someone around the corner. Something like that.

And if it wasn't? Well, Keith could deal with it later. Nothing was going to ruin his good mood.

* * *

"What's wrong now?"

Lance pointed frantically at his mirror, which still showed that-- That _guy!_ With the dark hair and the bad-boy aesthetic and the entirely-too-tight pants. "Explain!"

Pidge turned to the mirror with a raised eyebrow, then back to Lance. "Uh... Mirrors are a pane of glass treated through a process called 'silvering--'"

"No! Not--" Lance groaned emphatically. "What you did to it! No one else I know is smart enough to do something like that. Not even Hunk. So whatever you did, the secret screen you put behind the glass or whatever-- I bet that's how you hurt your hand! I bet you cut yourself installing it! And-- I bet you hooked up a secret camera somewhere with hired actors--"

"If I could do that, do you think we'd be talking about hiring a cameraman today?" Pidge crossed their arms and leaned against the frame of Lance's door. "Whatever you saw, it wasn't me trying to gaslight you. Either it was a trick of the light or it was real."

" _Real?!_ " choked Lance. He pointed again at the person in the mirror. "You expect me to believe _that's real?!_ That-- That _sexy_ guy in the mirror--!"

"Oh, I see what you're doing." Pidge rolled their eyes. "Yes, Lance, you're _very_ attractive. Feel better now?"

"No! That's not--!"

"Look." Pidge pushed off Lance's doorframe. "I have to go home. My mom's gonna kill me if I'm late again. See you tomorrow."

"No-- Wait-- _Pidge!_ "

Lance jumped to his feet and ran to his door, only for Pidge to join the rest of Lance's friends in closing a door in his face that day.

This time, literally.

"Ow..." Lance rubbed the end of his nose and looked back at his mirror with a pout.

The guy in the mirror, in the perfect reverse of Lance's room, hadn't moved from the window. He hadn't reacted at all. Either he was a really good actor, or he wasn't getting a feed of Lance's response. He just seemed...content. Content to be still just looking through the window. Lance didn't know why. There wasn't much of a view. Lance would know. He had to live with it every day. It was just another building across the alleyway--

...Huh.

From where Lance stood, by his door, he could see through the window Mr. Tall, Dark, and Sexy was looking through.

It was the same building.

Pidge was a little shit sometimes, but they were right. If they had the means to animate a perfect replica of the view outside Lance's room, they wouldn't be talking about cameraman money.

And more than that, Lance wasn't exactly a science whiz, but he knew how screens looked when they were observed from the side. He knew the way they skewed. They were flat. They didn't have depth. They didn't change perspective depending on the angle you were looking at them.

As Lance crossed the room to where his window stood and his perspective of the mirror changed with his position, he had to accept that it wasn't a screen. It was more like Lance was looking through a window, but a window to the next apartment--even in the unlikely event Pidge went that far--wouldn't show the same exact view as the one from Lance's window.

Except... That brick wall looked oddly...new.

Lance rapped his knuckles on the surface of his mirror.

Captain Edgy didn't so much as adjust his leather jacket.

"...Nah. Nope. Nuh-uh. There's no way. I am definitely not looking into the past right now. The world doesn't work like that."

But out of all of Lance's protests, the mirror didn't seem to listen to a single one. 

* * *

KMET 104.7

_**~The Comet~** _

_"Good evening, everyone. How are you tonight? Are you all curled up in your beds with a loved one? Are you on your way to that graveyard shift, trying to save enough to finally buy that perfect ring for your forever girl? Or are you sitting at home with all the lights out, trying to forget her? Well, whether you're on your way to pick up a date or a tub of ice cream, we have the perfect song for you coming up on the KMET love song block. I'm Sven Holgersson, and I'll be your guide through the vast cosmos of love tonight, here on 104.7, The Comet. At the turn of the hour, we'll start taking dedications, but until then, let's ease on into the evening with something slow, something to settle you into the seat of your car, or the cushions of your couch, or into the arms of the one you love. Here's... Eddie Money with 'Take Me Home Tonight'."_

Shiro switched the cart machine from the cart that held his intro music to the one that held "Take Me Home Tonight" and muted his mic.

"That's slow to you?"

Shiro looked over his shoulder and lowered his headphones. The afternoon DJ, Olia, was still packing up behind him.

"Not really, no," admitted Shiro. "I'm a little distracted."

"Oh, yeah?" Olia pulled up her jacket. "By what?"

"It's a little complicated to explain," said Shiro. "It's a good thing, though. A little stressful, just because it was sudden, but good."

Olia set a hand on the back of Shiro's chair and leaned down. "You know, if this has to do with a guy, you can tell me."

"Not unless my brother's a guy," said Shiro.

"Your brother?" Olia lifted her head. "I didn't know you _had_ a brother."

"Adopted," said Shiro. "Like I said, it's complicated. If I try to explain it all, we're going to get dead air."

"Right, sorry." Olia zipped up her coat. "Good luck, though."

"Thanks."

Olia sent Shiro a two-finger salute and disappeared through the studio doors, leaving Shiro alone with his board and his thoughts. 

The Love Song block was simple: An hour of Shiro's choices, an hour of call-in dedications, an hour of reading love letters sent in by listeners (interspersed with song requests), and then back to Shiro's picks until the end of the shift. Knowing that Keith would be listening put the pressure on, though. He wanted to play songs Keith would like--at least a few--but Keith wasn't really the easy listening type.

Shiro would have to take a look through the carts.

In time, the love song block tied up and Shiro hung up his stage name for the evening so he could return to life as Takashi Shirogane. 

Keith's brother.

God, it was so strange to have Keith back in his life.

Strange, but wonderful.

As Shiro passed through the station doors and out into the streets, the sound of a trumpet touched his ears. He couldn't see where its player had set up shop, but whoever it was, they were brave to do their busking at nearly two o'clock in the morning. Part of Shiro wanted to find them, to make sure they got at least a few bucks by the end of the night, but with Keith to worry about, Shiro knew he would have to keep a tight hand on his wallet until he was sure they were stable.

Until then, all he could do was lean against the wall of his station, dig into his coat pocket for a cigarette, and listen.

Shiro didn't smoke. He'd never smoked. But Adam had.

Since Adam's death, Shiro had been buying the same Camels Adam had once bought and lighting them up in tense moments. Just to smell. Just to close his eyes and pretend, for a little bit, that he was standing next to Adam once more. It was one more expense he knew he'd have to drop, thanks to Keith, but... Maybe it was time.

For the night, though, he could still lean against the cool stone behind him, trick himself into thinking he'd followed Adam into the night to join him on his smoke break, and lose himself in that beautiful, melancholic ringing that carried into Shiro's alley.

* * *

Lance watched Sir Leather Jacket for hours. He wasn't sure exactly what he was looking for. A break in character, an end to the transmission... He just wanted something to give.

But it never did.

Señor Tight Jeans just paced around his room, occasionally humming along with the songs on his dinky little clock radio, grinning every time the DJ broke the music.

He seemed a little antsy, like he couldn't sit still, but aside from that, it simply seemed like he was in a good mood.

And then, as the night wound down, he turned off the radio, and he switched off the lights.

Lance half-expected, when the lights went out, that the light from his own room would bleed into Admiral Big Boots' copy. Like it really was just a window Lance was looking through the whole time.

But it didn't.

Billy Badass's room just...went dark.

And in the dim glow from the window, he began to pull off his shirt.

That was when Lance realized he'd been staring at a stranger who thought he'd been alone for the past three hours and he quickly looked away and cupped his hands around his face.

"Holy cannoli, I really _am_ creepy."

But, creepy or not, there was no avoiding that Lance had gotten the confirmation he needed. There was definitely something supernatural going on. And between the style of the clothes, the music coming through the radio, and the odd yellow of the lights as if the world hadn't quite figured out how to go over twenty frikkin' watts in a bulb yet, it seemed Lance's initial instinct was right.

He was looking into the past.

What he was supposed to do about that, though...

That was a completely different question.

* * *

Outside a radio station, in the middle of the night, in March of '87, a musician lowered his trumpet from his lips and looked into the cloudy, red, light-polluted sky above.

A breeze blew through the streets, teasing the ends of the blond hair that reached just under his jaw and drying the tears on his face. 

Wildflowers danced through the cracks in the concrete beneath him. 

_I won't cry for yesterday_

_There's an ordinary world_

_Somehow I have to find_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New world, new fic! Okay! So... I've been planning this fic since...circa 2018? And while I was planning it, I had no idea that the entire culture of the planet would, you know, c h a n g e in 2020. So we're still operating on Old World Logic, even though it takes place in modern times. (I mean, half of it does.) If we can suspend our disbelief enough to accept that Lance and Keith are real people, that there's a big-ass city called Altea that doesn't really exist in the real world, and that there are magic mirrors that show other people's reflections instead of our own, then we can all accept that the only things to change with 2020 in this universe are, like, pop culture things, right? Okay. Because I actually do kind of need pop culture to exist in this fic as framing. But everything else, just... -vague gesturing- Work with me here.
> 
> Okay! I think that's all! Please enjoy...the most ambitious fic I've ever come up with. It's going to be a long one, ladies and gents and various scents. Like, my longest fic right now is about 350k? ...This might compete with that. So strap in, and let the feels come to you.
> 
> [Discord!](https://discord.gg/BtX9duD)


	2. Seasons (Don't Fear the Reaper)

MARCH

If Lance had hopes that the whole Mirror Bad Boy situation was just a freak, cosmic accident that would only last a single day, those hopes were crushed the following morning when Lance woke to the sound of a radio that decidedly wasn't his.

With a groan, Lance pulled his pillow over his head and tried as hard as he could to muffle the sound. It came through anyway.

Blearily, Lance glared through a space between the pillow and the mattress and into the mirror as some '80s song he didn't recognize pierced through the fluff pressed to his ears.

As with the night before, Mr. Motorcycle wandered around in his boxers and pulled a rumpled t-shirt and equally neglected pair of jeans out of a cardboard box.

This time, however, Lance found himself giving exactly zero sugar-honey-iced-teas about the Man in the Mirror's state of dress.

He just scowled at the bare legs as they were covered by a pair of jeans.

" _...you can see, you can see light..._ "

"Ugh... Really? Are you seriously singing along with the radio right now?" Lance groaned and pressed his face into the mattress. "Of course you are. Of course my nonconsensual roommate is a morning person. Friiick..."

The Magical Mr. Mirror-stoffelees disappeared through his bedroom, door, and the second the window into the past on Lance's wall returned to its natural reflective form, Lance slammed back into sleep.

APRIL

" _\-- **HITS FRO** \--kshh-- **ST TO COAST!** \---kshhhhh--_"

Keith cursed and rotated the antenna of his radio. He swore he had it perfect last week...

"--nd welcome to American Top 40!"

"Finally..."

"I'm Casey Kas _\--kshhh--_ "

" _Augh!_ "

Keith wiggled the antenna. Under his gloves, his hands itched to strangle the damn thing. If there was no risk of bending something Shiro had given him, he would have done it a long time ago.

"--pril--nine--eighty-seven--"

"Man, I do _not_ envy you."

Keith flinched.

That was the clearest he'd ever heard it. That voice. The one he'd been hearing since he left home a month prior.

Somehow, the idea of the fact he'd been standing right next to his window while he fumbled with the radio on his new dresser being unrelated seemed laughable.

It always seemed to come from the window. Not through it...but from it.

Keith squinted at the glass.

The sun wouldn't set for another thirty minutes or so, meaning he could make out the bricks on the other side more than anything, but in the glass itself, Keith could just barely make out vague shapes. 

The funny thing was...Keith wasn't seeing the reflection he was supposed to see. He could see his closet door, and...maybe his cot? But his own face was completely missing from the picture.

And...

It kind of looked like...

In front of the door, Keith could swear--

"--Simply Red, with The Right Thing!"

Keith jerked away from his clock radio. His heart felt like it was going to explode in his chest.

But... His radio was working.

And when Keith looked back at the mirror, he saw nothing but the brick wall beyond, and the faint ghost of his own reflection.

"...ghost, huh..."

MAY

"Holy freaking crow, what do you _eat?!_ "

Lance threw a wadded-up napkin at his mirror. Keith, as Lance had learned was his name, didn't so much as look up. Lance was fully aware that people had no reason to...contain themselves...in their own company. Hell, Lance wasn't ashamed to admit he'd ripped one or two or ten in front of his friends just to set them off.

But god, it was something else to be in the presence of someone who didn't know you were there and listen to them regularly play the butt trumpet as if they were the only ones there who could hear it. 

At least Lance couldn't smell it.

Though, come to think of it, the apartment had smelled funny when he'd first moved in... Lance wouldn't have surprised to learn that the Ass Blaster 9000 had left a decades-long mark on his room before he moved out.

JUNE

"Shiro?"

Shiro looked at Keith expectantly, a string of cheese trailing out of the corner of his mouth.

"I, uh..." Keith frowned at his own slice. "...Do you believe in ghosts?" 

Shiro swallowed his bite and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Well... I don't know about ghosts,but I believe there are some things in the universe that haven't been confirmed by science yet. I guess ghosts, or something like it, could exist. Why?"

Keith glanced down the hall, toward his bedroom. "Well... At first, I thought it was just that I was under stress because of everything that happened, even if I didn't feel like I was, or that I just wasn't used to sleeping here yet, and that's why I heard a voice sometimes, but... I'm not so sure anymore." Keith picked a ball of bread off his crust and rolled it between his fingers. "I think there's something... _in there._ Maybe."

He warily met Shiro's eyes once more.

"You probably think I'm crazy."

"Hm..." Shiro leaned back. "I believe you heard _something._ I know you wouldn't make something like this up."

"But you don't think it's real," finished Keith.

"I didn't say that," said Shiro. "All I'm saying is that I don't know, and we should also consider the possibility that it might not be."

"But what if it _is?_ " asked Keith.

"Then I think..." Shiro set his half-eaten pizza on the lid of the box and dusted off his hand on his knee. "I think we should get you a library card."

JULY

"Dude, get your feet off my wall."

Lance crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall behind him, the same wall Keith had his feet propped up on in the mirror.

Keith laid back, arms outstretched over him, head hanging over the edge of his bed, stupid '80s mullet fanning out behind him, eyes trained on the book he held at arms' length. He'd been reading a lot lately. About things like ghosts and aliens, which Lance found stupid until he realized he was looking through a mirror into the past and accepted he didn't know what was real anymore.

But Keith's weird choice in literature wasn't his complaint at the moment.

His current complaint was the big damn motorcycle boots on his wall.

"That's not going to be your room forever, you know," said Lance. "If you could respect it for, like, _five minutes,_ I'd appreciate it."

Keith only responded by singing along with the radio.

" _...Only to be with you...only to be with you..._ "

Lance dropped his chin on his knees.

Well... At least there was one thing about Keith he didn't mind. One singer to another, he had a nice voice.

But Lance still wished he'd just leave already.

AUGUST

Keith grunted as he pushed the mattress onto his new bed frame. It hit with a pleasant whump. So did Keith.

"Hey, put the sheets on it first," chided Shiro.

Keith grumbled into his new mattress.

Shiro laughed. "Glad to be off the cot, huh?"

"You have no idea." Keith rolled onto his back. "This...is _so nice._ "

"So what's next?" asked Shiro. "Car?"

"I have my motorcycle."

"You're going to hate it when winter rolls around. Altea winters are miserable."

"I'll live." Keith sat up and pulled his legs onto his mattress so he could rest his elbows on his knees. "I want a desk."

"For your research?" asked Shiro.

"Yeah."

"Found anything?"

Keith clasped a hand around his wrist. "Not yet. But I haven't given up. If I can't find anything someone else discovered, I'll just have to find an explanation on my own."

"You think you can?" asked Shiro.

"I can try," said Keith.

Shiro smiled. "Then you'll figure something out. No matter what there is to find, I know you'll find it. You don't give up."

Keith nodded, and his gaze wandered to a space on his wall.

No, he didn't give up.

SEPTEMBER

Lance was lying awake, trying to sleep, when he heard it.

He'd gotten used to sleeping with Keith in the same room. It was hard not to be after six months.

But that was because he'd never had to put up with... _that._

_What is that? Wait. He's not... No. No way. It's been six months. I thought he just did it in the shower or something, if he's not some--some alien who doesn't do it at all! There's no way that's what I think it is._

_...Oh, fuck, it_ so is.

"Nope." Lance shot upright in bed and threw his blankets off. "Nope, nope, nope, nope, _nope!_ I am _not_ listening to you-- _do that!_ No way! It's not happening!"

He grabbed his headphones off his discarded laptop, snatched his phone off its charger, and tried not to think about the fact that he was slipping a "jack" into a _hole_ while he softly muttered "no-no-no-no-no" over the sounds he struggled to ignore.

He wasn't loud enough to drown it out, not when he was trying not to wake Hunk. 

He still heard it. Even when he slipped his headphones on. The sound may have vanished behind the music, but it was too late. The sound was in his _head._

"What the hell did I do to deserve this? Is this my punishment for hitting on Allura? What, I've been creeping on her for years, so now I'm doomed to forever stalk someone against my will? Including in super private, awkward, gross moments?! I don't want this!"

Lance clapped his hands over his headphones, as if that would get the sound out of his head.

" _Fine!_ Fine, I'll ask her out! Just make--it-- _stop!_ "

OCTOBER

"So, what does it say?" asked Shiro. "The voice."

Keith tore his eyes away from a mirror that had distracted him from the desks. "...I don't know," he admitted. "It's really...faint. And distorted."

"But you know it's a voice," said Shiro. "You're sure."

"Yes."

Shiro nodded. "You know, there's a trumpet that plays every night when I get off work. I think it's a busker, but I've never seen them." 

"A busker?" asked Keith. "In the middle of the night?"

"Exactly," said Shiro. "It's strange. They shouldn't be out there. It doesn't really make sense. There's no way they're making money. But I know a trumpet when I hear one. And if you say you know a voice when you hear it, I believe you."

NOVEMBER

It was almost funny how fast Lance had gotten used to Keith's presence.

Sure, the first three days or so were terribly uncomfortable. He'd had his sense of personal space ripped out from under him very quickly. He'd even gotten changed in his closet--which, by the way, wasn't walk-in--until he'd adjusted to the shock of it all. He'd even felt sincere _dread_ in the pit of his stomach. Things were happening that he didn't understand, couldn't explain.

But after a while, he got tired of squirming among his hangers every morning, and he'd started getting changed in his room again, whether Keith was around or not.

He had his complaints--hell, he had his complaints with Hunk, and he'd _chosen_ to be _Hunk's_ roommate--but...he didn't actually hate having Keith there.

He started treating the mirror less like a curse and more like an ongoing soap opera he was forced to watch.

Sometimes, he'd just sit back and listen to Keith and Shiro talk. 

And...sometimes, he'd talk to Keith himself.

It was therapeutic, talking to a real person who couldn't talk back. 

That was why, when Lance got home that cold, November night, he pulled off his scarf, slid off his coat, and lowered himself to the floor, back facing the mirror.

"...I finally did it," he whispered, watching Keith scribble notes at his desk through the glass, humming idly along to whatever was playing through his cheap, plastic headphones. "I told Allura how I felt, I... I asked her out."

Lance hugged his legs to his chest.

"...She said no."

Keith didn't respond, of course. Even if he could hear Lance in the past, he wouldn't have been able to hear through his headphones. There was no way he'd answer.

But, for the first time, Lance found himself wishing he would. 

DECEMBER

Shiro burst through Keith's door without warning.

Keith shot upright in bed. "What's going on?"

Shiro just grinned. "Christmas."

Keith raised his eyebrows. He felt a smile tug at his lips.

His first Christmas with Shiro in two years.

"Yeah, I'm coming."

He spared a glance at the books on his desk, and, just for one day, he left them behind.

JANUARY

Lance's heart nearly stopped.

When he walked into his bedroom, he was immediately greeted with a very close view of Keith.

He was knocking on the mirror.

Lance clutched the front of his coat. He couldn't breathe.

"...Keith?"

But Keith didn't answer. He took a step to the right and knocked on another part of the wall.

For the first time, Lance saw the tape recorder in his hand.

"...The hell are you doing?"

FEBRUARY

"So? What does that sound like?" asked Keith.

Shiro made a face and lowered the headphones Keith had pushed at him. "...Static?"

"Are you sure?" asked Keith. "Because I--"

"What did you hear?" asked Shiro.

Keith pursed his lips. It sounded silly, saying it out loud like this, but...

"...My name."

"Your name?" Shiro hit the rewind button on Keith's Walkman. It hissed for only a few seconds before Shiro played it again.

He closed his eyes. His brow furrowed.

"...Oh, there," he said at last.

He hit stop.

"Yeah, I guess I can kind of hear what you're hearing."

"But you don't think it's anything," said Keith.

"Keep trying," said Shiro. "You'll find something worth dissecting soon."

Keith took his headphones back with a sigh.

"Until then..." Shiro dug his elbow into the table. "What's the next thing you want for your room?"

"Well..." Keith clipped his Walkman onto his pocket. "There's only one thing I can think of that's missing."

MARCH

"Of course, then Hunk gets impatient with me, not that I blame him, and he drops the bowl on my head--"

"Oh, my!"

"Yeah, so now I've got clumps of brownie batter in my hair, and I'm screaming--because of course I am--and I throw the bowl off and tackle Hunk to the floor. I just barely manage to get him pinned when the door opens, and bam, there's Pidge. And Pidge just looks at me, looks at Hunk, looks at my hair--which is probably looking pretty questionable at this point--and they just...raise their hands and walk back out like we pointed a gun at their head."

Allura laughed.

Allura laughed like birdsong and blue skies and bubble tea, and Lance's heart swelled in his chest.

He knew he didn't have a chance with her anymore. They'd talked about it more than once. And, slowly, they were figuring out how to be friends again.

Just friends.

Nothing more suggested or implied with every word.

And Lance was happy with that. Allura was a great friend, and for the first time in ages, Lance felt like he could truly appreciate that.

He wasn't fighting so hard for something else anymore. The pressure was off.

It was...nice.

But Allura was still beautiful, and Lance couldn't help it if his knees still went weak at the sound of her laugh.

"I wish I had been there for that," said Allura, her coffee turning easily in her hands. "It sounds hilarious."

"It was nuts," agreed Lance. "It took me weeks to get the chocolate stains out of my shirt!"

Allura giggled. "I can only imagine. And what did you tell Pidge?" 

"The truth, of course," said Lance. "Not that it stopped them from cupping their hands around their mouth and yelling, 'Ha! _Gay!_ ' every time Hunk and I did anything together for the next _month._ "

"Ah, so _that's_ why."

Allura pushed open the cafe door, and Lance took exactly one step out.

Then some jackass with worse hair than Keith's came running past with his hand shoved into his coat.

He rammed into the glass door with his entire body and kept on going, despite the fact that he'd sent Lance's entire coffee flying out of his hand and into Allura's skirt.

"Crap!" yelped Lance. "Allura, are you okay?!"

Allura hissed a sharp breath through her teeth and peeled her skirt away from her leg, shaking it out onto the sidewalk. "I'm all right," she said. "That is, I'm not _hurt..._ "

Initial concern gone, Lance looked over his shoulder and scanned the sidewalk for the guy with the stupid hair who slammed into them and didn't even apologize. He couldn't find him.

" _Jackass..._ "

"But my skirt..." Allura sighed.

"It was a white mocha," assured Lance. "It shouldn't stain."

"No, I know, but..." Allura bit her lip. "I have a date, after this."

"A date," repeated Lance, some small, still-hopeful part of his heart snapping in half in his chest.

"Yes," said Allura. "And I don't have time to go home and change unless I want to make him wait."

Lance clenched his teeth.

He looked from Allura's legs to his own. Her waist-size to his.

He sighed harshly.

_I can't believe I'm actually doing this._

"What size are you?"

* * *

"And this is it?" asked Shiro, eyeing his own reflection.

"Yep." Keith crossed his arms. "It took a year, but my room's finally finished."

"Hmm." Shiro looked around the rest of Keith's room, at the bed, the dresser, the desk, and now...the mirror. "Well, I imagine it's going to be a relief not to have to go to the bathroom every time you want to check your hair."

Keith rolled his eyes. "I just...feel like every bedroom needs one. At least for convenience. And if not for that, then..." He shrugged. "...to make this place finally feel like home."

Shiro looked at him. "...Does it?"

Keith raised an eyebrow.

"Does it feel like home?" clarified Shiro.

Keith smiled. "...Yeah. It does."

Shiro grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into a tight, warm, safe hug. "Good."

In truth, Keith had felt like he was finally home the morning he woke up and saw Shiro looming over him with a paper bag and a cup of coffee. But...the mirror helped.

Shiro clapped a hand to the back of Keith's head and pulled back. 

"Okay." Tears sparkled in his eyes. "I have to get to work now. But, um..." He sniffed sharply and reached into his back pocket. "Here, buy a pizza--"

"Shiro..."

"--or takeout or something." He flipped open his wallet and fished a twenty-dollar bill out of the folds. "Celebrate. You've worked hard to get here. Just because I can't be here for it doesn't mean I can't be proud of you."

"You don't have to do that," said Keith.

"Take the money," said Shiro. "Call me sentimental. I'm not going to work until I do something to congratulate you on how far you've come."

Keith pursed his lips.

Shiro pushed the money at his chest. "It's the twenty-third. You said it yourself, it's been a year. I'm celebrating in my own way."

"By giving me money?"

Shiro raised his eyebrows pointedly. "Yes."

Keith sighed good-naturedly. "Fine." He yanked the money out of Shiro's hand. "But I'm making you dinner tomorrow for taking me in to begin with."

Shiro clapped his hand on Keith's shoulder. "It's a deal."

They hugged one last time, Keith teased Shiro gently for being a big baby and crying over something as simple as Keith getting his life together, and Shiro walked through the doors.

Keith smiled to himself, slipped the cash Shiro had given him into his pocket, and took a seat at his desk, preparing what had become a nightly ritual since the day he realized the voice he heard was real. 

He opened his yellow notebook and flipped to a fresh page.

He grabbed a library book from the small stack he had checked out.

He reached for his Walkman.

He...heard a _noise._

Not the _usual_ sort of noise. At least, not at first. At first, he heard what sounded like a door being flung open. At first, he thought it was his own door. At first, he thought Shiro may have been in some kind of trouble.

But...his door was closed.

His mirror's door, on the other hand, was _not._

In fact, his mirror's door looked very different from his own. His own door was more of an off-white while his mirror's door was pure white, as if it had been repainted at some point. The carpet in front of the door was different as well, his ruddy, rust-colored carpet disappearing in favor of a shorter, beige one.

And...there was also the matter of the person standing in the doorway.

Said person slammed the door so furiously the hem of his skirt flew up.

His...skirt.

A blue, knee-length one which seemed to have a sizeable damp patch running down the left side.

"Welcome to the post-Backstreet Boys world, jackass! I can wear what I want!"

Keith closed his gaping mouth, wondering briefly if this being could read his thoughts.

Then it struck him.

He _knew_ that voice.

"Stupid transphobes or whatever-- What if I _was_ a girl, huh? What're you gonna do about it?"

The man threw his arms out, like he was challenging the world beyond his window, and he yanked something sleek and rectangular out of his jacket pocket. Something that looked like it belonged in a science fiction movie.

"Stupid-- _Siri!_ Define transphobia!"

Something dinged--presumably the...rectangle--and began to speak. 

" _Transphobia. Dislike of or prejudice against transsexual or transgender people._ "

The man in the skirt nodded in polite agreement until the device stopped speaking, then prompty resumed his tirade.

"See?! Now, personally, I would _also_ define _'transphobe'_ as a piece of shit who harasses anyone on the street with a skirt who they believe shouldn't be wearing a skirt! I would define 'transphobe' as a piece of _human garbage_ I'd _like_ to throw in the river, but I _wouldn't,_ because that's _littering,_ and people like _you_ are bad for _any_ environment! _Ugh!_ "

The skirt-wearing man turned his full attention to the device in his hands and flopped onto his bed, which looked very different from Keith's little twin bed. He scooted back until he was flat against his headboard and kicked his feet up, shoes and all.

"Man, Keith, you would not _believe_ the day I've had." He looked over the top of his device very briefly, just long enough to acknowledge Keith. "Hey, by the way."

"I..." Keith's eyes darted from the man to the thing in his hands to the world around him, a million questions in his mind, not the least of which being "How the hell do you know my name?" But none of those questions found his tongue.

The only word he could get out was...

" _...Hi?_ "

The man went still.

His thumbs stopped tapping the front of the device.

His head jerked up.

He looked at Keith, directly into his eyes, his own widening to the size of saucers.

He looked down at himself. More specifically, it seemed, at the soiled skirt he was wearing, and he sighed, all the shock flowing out of him, replaced with clear frustration.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me." 

_If you're lost_

_You can look_

_And you will find me_

_Time after time_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I exhausted myself working on original fiction, burned myself out, got depressed from fatigue, spent a whole day doing jack shit, and then I wrote this in less than six hours. Bon appetit.
> 
> [Discord!](https://discord.gg/BtX9duD)


	3. Down the Rabbit Hole

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

Of course, out of all days, Keith would decide to finally look back at Lance the day he switched clothes with Allura--so she could go on a date, mind--just to add insult to injury. Of-frikkin-course. Just his luck.

And if Lance just...focused on the ridiculousness of the whole situation instead of the fact that Keith was looking directly into his eyes, maybe he'd make it through without freaking out.

Like it looked like Keith was about to do.

Lance hastily put his phone on his bedcovers and dropped to the floor.

"Don't..." Lance held out his hands and met Keith's wide eyes as he inched toward the mirror on his knees, trying to make himself look as far from intimidating as possible. "Don't scream, okay?"

"I wasn't going to," said Keith, not an ounce of emotion in his voice, despite the pallor of his face. "Why would I scream...?"

Lance recoiled, insulted. "Why _wouldn't_ you?!" he demanded. "It's a perfectly normal reaction to scream!"

Keith didn't have an answer to that. He just...stared, eyes flicking across Lance's body from his face to his knees. "You're the _guy..._ "

"I'm _what?_ " demanded Lance. " _What_ guy?!"

"The guy I've been hearing in my room," said Keith, eyeing Lance's borrowed skirt. "The guy I--"

"You _heard_ me?!" snapped Lance. "Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait, this whole time, you knew I was _here?_ Then why the _hell_ have you been turning your room into a gas chamber every chance you get?!"

That, finally, seemed to register in Keith's expression. "I didn't know you were a...a conscious..." His brow twitched. "Gas chamber? What--?"

His eyes widened.

"You... You've been _watching me_ this whole time? The _whole--_ "

"Not on purpose," said Lance. "Trust me, I've seen--and heard--way more of you than I ever wanted to. Like, _way_ more."

"What--"

Keith's eyes, impossibly, widened even further.

"Great," said Lance. "The other shoe dropped. Thank god I don't have to keep _that_ to myself anymore. Do you know how _gross_ that felt? The, like, _accidental voyeurism?_ I felt like a _stalker--_ "

"You _are!_ " Keith stood up so fast he knocked his chair over behind him. "You fucking _are!_ "

"What are you talking about?"

"You're a fucking stalker." Keith pointed a finger through the mirror at Lance's face. "You've been watching me like a creep for the past year. Or longer. Maybe last year was just the first time I noticed you."

"It _wasn't!_ " Lance jumped to his own feet. "And-- And what was I supposed to do?! Move out?! I got here first! You were the one who moved in and started sending weird psychic energy through my mirror or whatever! _God!_ You act like I _wanted_ to listen to you ja--"

"No." Keith held up a hand and made a beeline for the door.

"No?" repeated Lance. "What do you fucking mean _'no'?!_ You can't just make it go _away-- I_ wasn't the one who chose to go to town on myself when I knew there was some kind of funky presence in my room!"

" _Shut up!_ " snapped Keith. "Just-- _Augh!_ "

He twisted his doorknob and pulled back on it like he was trying to start a lawnmower.

"Oh, no, you don't!" said Lance. "You aren't walking out on me right now! Get back here! Don't walk through that door!"

Keith stepped over the threshold without looking back.

" _Keith!_ "

The door slammed in Lance's face.

* * *

Keith pressed his back to his bedroom door and slid all the way down to the carpet. He was going to die. That was just the way things were. He was going to die, on the spot, and Shiro would come home and see his corpse and wonder what the hell happened, and he'd probably never know. He'd never heard Lance's voice before, so why would he see Lance either? And if he never saw Lance, he'd never understand that the reason Keith took one look at him and died outside his own bedroom door was that Lance was--

Okay, he was attractive. A little. As infuriating as he was, as _traumatizing_ as that _entire conversation_ was, Keith wasn't blind. Lance was hot and he'd been listening to Keith fart and sing off-key, watching him pop pimples and probably pick his nose at some point--or worse, _cry_ \--among...other things--

"God damn it. God fucking damn it."

Keith rubbed his face and stood from the floor.

No way in hell was he going back in there. Not unless he had to.

He headed into the kitchen and reached for the phone.

In thirty minutes, a knock came at his apartment door, and he opened it to find a very butch woman on the other side.

"You order the lo mein?"

"Yeah." Keith handed her the bill he'd been wringing in his hands for the past half-hour. "Sorry it's all...wadded up."

"Who cares?" The woman pushed Keith's food at him and reached into her apron for a wad of bills. "As long as you have enough to pay for what you bought, I don't give a shit."

Keith raised his eyebrows and set his food on the nearby kitchen counter.

The woman yanked Keith's change out of the wad of bills and handed it back to him. "Too much of my energy is spent trying to stay alive under Reagan. I don't have time to worry about people who aren't _trying_ to do me harm anymore."

Keith hesitated, hands stilling in the middle of choosing a tip from the remainder. "...Yeah."

He handed the woman her tip, brow furrowed, and she sent him a sharp salute.

"Pleasure doing business with you."

"Yeah..." Keith reached for his lo mein. "Pleasure..."

He closed the door, frowning to himself.

 _I don't have time to worry about people who aren't_ trying _to do me harm._

Keith cursed under his breath.

Fine. _Fine._ He knew a sign from the universe when he saw it.

With a grumble, Keith trudged down the hallway and opened his bedroom door.

As predicted, Lance was still there, waiting for him, dragging his thumbs idly across that science-fiction device in his hands.

"Oh, are you done being a baby now?" he asked, not looking up.

"At least I didn't scream," said Keith, propping his desk chair upright and plopping into it.

"You kind of did," said Lance.

Keith glared at him over his takeout.

Lance shrugged. "You _did._ But, anyway, now that we're all acting like adults, _hi._ As I said, my name's Lance. And you're Keith. Nice to meet you."

"So what are you?" asked Keith. "Some kind of alien, or--?"

"Alien?!" Lance's demonstrated calm vanished as he jerked forward, eyes wide. "I look like an _alien_ to you?!"

Keith rolled his eyes. Okay, so _that_ was why he was attractive. Because that was all Lance cared about being. Great to know that only went skin deep.

"You're a creep who's been watching me from inside my mirror," said Keith. "What am I supposed to think?"

"I'm not inside your mirror!" said Lance. "It's-- It's like live TV, okay? I'm in my part of the world--which is Earth, by the way--and you're in yours. We can just...see and hear each other."

"Uh-huh." Keith broke apart his chopsticks. "And what about that?" He jabbed one at the sleek device in Lance's hands.

"This?" Lance held it up. "This is a phone, dude. I use it to complain to my bandmates about how we're spending every dollar we make on two-inch tape."

"A phone," deadpanned Keith. "Sure."

"I'd prove it to you," said Lance, "but I'm not bothering my mom with this shit. So you'll just have to trust me."

Keith opened the takeout box on his lap and glared into its contents. Trust Lance? After the past year? "Yeah. I'll get right on that."

"Look, if you're still mad about me overhearing you...you know." Lance shifted on his bed. The mattress creaked beneath him. "You should know I grabbed a pair of headphones and drowned you out as soon as possible. I promise it was just as unpleasant for me as it was for you. Feel better now?"

Keith stole a glance at the mirror, glare softening. Actually, he did. A little bit. "Why didn't you just leave the room?"

"I..." Lance raised a finger. "...panicked. What would you have done? Yeah-- I know-- 'Leave the room.' But try thinking of that when you're put on the spot. I could have slept on the couch, but hey, hindsight is 20/20. Which is, incidentally, where I'm contacting you from."

Keith blinked, chopstickful of noodles pausing halfway to his mouth. "...What?"

"You're in, what, '87?" asked Lance.

"I-- The _year?_ " Keith's frown deepened. He had no idea where the conversation was going anymore. "'88."

"Right, right." Lance waved passively. "Years. They change. I can barely keep track of one, now I have to do two. Well, anyway, I'm not in '88. I'm in the big Two-Oh."

Keith's brain ground to halt.

His chopsticks fell out of his hand and into his takeout box.

In an instant, he went from having a functioning brain to having a flickering screen showing nothing but static.

"Y... You..."

"Yeah, thirty-two years in the future." Lance gestured to himself. "Crazy, right?"

"A..." Keith tried desperately to form words. Nothing came. He looked from Lance's clothes--just different enough from the style Keith was used to that it was uncanny--to the "phone" in his hands--sci-fi wasn't far off--to the ceiling as he recalled what Lance had been venting about when he'd walked in. Prejudice against transsexuals, like it was obvious that it was wrong, that people should know better. Like racism and antisemitism, just...something most of the world had figured out and some idiot was lagging behind.

"Oh..."

Lance nodded and opened his mouth to say something, but someone else cut him off.

"Lance!" called a voice through Lance's closed door. "I got groceries! Think you can help me out?"

"Coming!"

Lance stood from his bed and shoved his phone in his pocket. "Sorry, Admiral Edgelord. I have priors." He strode to the mirror and knocked on the glass separating them. "See ya!"

"No, wait--" Keith urgently moved his dinner to his desk and stood from his chair, but by the time he was on his feet, Lance was already at his door.

He sent a fingergun through the mirror, closed the door, and vanished, leaving Keith with only his own aghast reflection for company.

* * *

Hunk was waiting when Lance reached the kitchen.

His hands were on his hips, and he stood between the counter and the refrigerator like a stone sentry, like a gargoyle.

Lance froze up, shoulders rising to his ears. "...What?"

God, he didn't overhear Lance talking to Keith, did he? Because if he did-- Man, lying to Hunk was a mistake, a big mistake--

"I heard what you did for Allura," said Hunk.

"Oh."

Ohhh... That.

Lance had almost forgotten about that.

Huh. Well, at least Keith distracted him from that divine punishment, if nothing else.

_Out of one hell, into another..._

"I'm proud of you," said Hunk with a smile that proved it. "You've come a long way from being the idiot who hit on Allura at every waking moment. Our band might actually survive now."

"Is this what growth is supposed to feel like?" asked Lance. "Because it sucks."

"Oh, yeah, I'm sure." Hunk dragged Lance into a hug. "But it's good. Not just for the band, but for you. And that's why, tonight, I'm making garlic knots."

Lance closed his eyes and buried his face in Hunk's shoulder. He needed those garlic knots. Not just for the ordeal with Allura dating someone else, but for the whole thing with Keith. The thing that coiled anxiety in his stomach like a snake ready to strike, a snake that hissed and rattled its tail and bared its fangs every time Lance thought about it for too long. He could already tell he wasn't going to be able to sleep. But garlic knots would help.

"I really do need you to help me with the groceries, though," said Hunk, patting his way out of the hug. "You put them up, I'll get started on cooking. They need time to rise."

* * *

The garlic knots--and the spaghetti Hunk made with them--were absolutely fantastic, and the movie they streamed was... Well, it was a movie. Lance had no complaints. The company, as always, was the best part anyway.

"I've been thinking," said Hunk. "You know how we got that old, run-down studio?"

Lance propped himself upright on the couch and snorted. "How could I forget? Three-fourths of my disposable income's been going into it for the past year."

"Exactly," said Hunk. "Anyway, there's this dinky little indie film festival coming up--"

"We still can't afford to pay a cameraman right now," said Lance, propping his feet on Hunk's lap.

"I know." Hunk pushed Lance's feet back off, unblinking. "But I was thinking we could, like, do some networking while we hold a bake sale."

Lance scratched his chin. "Can we do that?"

"I already talked to the people running the festival," said Hunk. "They were cool with it, but they want us to get back to them by the end of the week. You in?"

"Depends," said Lance. "How much work will I have to do?"

"Exactly as much as I trust you with." Hunk flicked the center of his forehead.

"Ow--!"

"Which is a lot, by the way," said Hunk. "Look, I'm not asking you to make a creme brulee or a perfect pie crust. But, as we proved last month, you can make a mean snickerdoodle."

Lance stopped rubbing his forehead. "...Yeah? You really liked them?" 

"They were pretty good," said Hunk. "And I expect to see them when we totally clean up at the film festival. You know, if you're in."

"Hell yeah I'm in!" Lance leaned across the couch and held out his hand. "Let's get the drama geeks of Altea addicted to Hunk's gourmet kickassery!"

Hunk grabbed his hand firmly and slid his palm out. "Cool. I'll call the festival guy tomorrow. But right now..." He yawned as he stood from the couch. "Right now, I'm ready to hit the hay. You?"

"Yeah, right behind you." Lance stretched as he stood, hands on his lower back. "See you in the morning, big guy."

"'Night, Lance."

Lance grabbed the remote off the endtable, turned off the TV, and made his way back to his bedroom.

It wasn't until his hand was wrapped around the doorknob that he paused to remember what was inside.

"Oh. Right..."

Lance pressed his forehead to the door. There was that anxiety again, right back where it came from.

Maybe it was stupid, but knowing the private sanctuary of his own room was just a little less private... And knowing that Keith--who was, honestly, proving himself to be more of an asshole than Lance had prepared himself for--was the one he was suddenly forced to socialize with, even in moments that were supposed to be quiet...

Lance wasn't looking forward to it.

But there was no way out of it, not without telling Hunk what was going on.

So Lance raised his head, swallowed his pride, and opened the door.

 _Hey,_ he thought. _Maybe I'll get lucky. Maybe Keith will be asleep already or something._

Lance stepped inside and looked at his mirror.

The lights were on. Keith's lights, that is. And they were bleeding into Lance's dark bedroom.

But Keith himself was, indeed, asleep.

It definitely didn't look intentional, though. He was facedown on his bed, still wearing his stupid leather jacket, facing the foot of the bed.

And... If anyone asked, it was because Lance didn't want to deal with the light from his mirror all night, and definitely not because he was a softie who wanted to make sure Keith didn't wake up the next morning hating himself.

"Hey." Lance rapped his knuckles against the mirror. "Hey!"

Keith lifted his head slowly, squinting, glaring, until his eyes landed on Lance and he seemed to slowly, gradually recall who he was.

"Go brush your teeth," said Lance.

Keith frowned.

Lance rolled his eyes. "Brush your teeth and change your clothes. You'll thank me later."

"I..." Keith sat up. "No-- Wait, I have questions--"

"That makes both of us," grumbled Lance. "But look, it's late, and you have work in the morning, so any questions you have can wait for later."

Keith's frown deepened. "You...expect me to work tomorrow. After finding out I can see the future in my mirror."

"Dude, last January, you went to work looking like a pale snot zombie. Or, like, the remains of a pale snot zombie after getting dunked into a vat of sweat by Death himself."

Keith stiffened.

_Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, why do I keep doing this? Can we pretend that didn't happen for five seconds? He obviously--_

"Good...point..."

Keith set his feet on the floor, and Lance almost screamed with relief. He had to get in the habit of not reminding Keith that he knew stupidly specific things about his life over the past year before it got him in trouble.

"...But I'm asking one question when I get back from the bathroom," said Keith. "Just so you know."

"Sure!" said Lance, hoping Keith didn't know his voice well enough yet to realize it was higher pitched than usual. "Yeah, yeah, go think about your question and come back. That's fair."

Keith drummed his hand on his door frame. "...Yeah."

And thankfully, he stepped through.

Lance crossed the room to his bed and flopped face-down on top of it.

So weird.

This was weird.

He was weird.

Everything was weird.

Keith wasn't supposed to know he existed. That wasn't how this worked. Or it wasn't how Lance thought it worked. It wasn't how he was prepared for it to work. Even after giving himself an evening with Hunk to adjust, he still just...wasn't...ready. He didn't think he'd ever be.

But Keith was coming back in minutes, and Lance didn't want to have to get undressed with Keith in the room.

He quickly tore his shirt and jeans off, grabbed a pair of pyjama pants, and all but dove into bed.

When Keith returned, Lance was modestly, comfortably under the covers.

Keith, for his part, was still wearing his jeans when he turned out the lights and climbed under the blankets.

Lance nearly reminded Keith he'd already seen him in his boxers plenty of times and there was no reason for him to sleep in his tight-ass pants, but a voice in the back of his head screamed "STOP!" and, at least this time, he thought better of it.

"So... That question?" said Lance instead.

"Yeah," said Keith, expression unreadable in the dark. "...How much do you know about me, exactly?"

_Oh, great. Straight to the point._

"Uh, surprisingly, not that much," said Lance instead of what he was thinking. "I mean, I'm still not even sure who Shiro is to you. It's not like you go around narrating your life. It's just...what I do know about you is, you know..." Lance cleared his throat. "...A-Awkwardly...private."

"Right..." Keith's bedsprings creaked. "Well... Shiro's my brother."

Lance raised his eyebrows. To his surprise, his pulse quickened. He hadn't been prepared for how it would feel for Keith to actually _volunteer_ information about himself for the first time.

"Oh," said Lance, quieter than he'd intended. "...Neat."

"...Yeah," said Keith. "It is. _He_...is."

Lance pulled his blankets to his neck. "You two seem close."

"...He's all I have."

Lance buried himself even deeper in his blankets. _Weird. Weird. So weird._

"...My roommate's name is Hunk," said Lance. "He's...practically my brother. I know it's not the same thing, but..."

Keith's bed squeaked. "...Neat."

Lance clutched his blankets. "Yeah." He cleared his throat again. "Anyway! We're supposed to be sleeping, so... Sleeping. Yeah." Lance pulled his blankets over his head. "G'night, Keith."

Definitely weird. Definitely, definitely weird. And maybe... Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe that meant Keith really wasn't as bad as Lance thought. Maybe.

"...Good night, Lance."

* * *

It had been a year, right?

Yeah... The first time Shiro heard the trumpet was the day after Keith climbed through his window. That night, Shiro told himself he had to be careful with money. And he was glad he had been.

But he'd tucked enough away to be confident about small emergencies, medical or otherwise, and Keith was sufficiently on his feet now, by his own admission.

And that trumpet...was starting to sound really tempting.

To say it was like a siren's song would have been an exaggeration. But...it had been a constant of Shiro's work nights for the past year, as if it were called to Shiro by the same fate that brought Keith to him.

And Shiro felt called in turn. Called, but...nervous.

The mysterious trumpet wafted in from the mouth of the alley, brassy and melancholy. Shiro could almost see it curling in the night, like mist, reaching out.

But there was no mysterious creature on the other side, no ghost or demon, no spectre luring him in. Just a person. A trumpet player who chose an odd time of day to busk.

And Shiro had a spare fiver in his pocket.

He took a deep breath through his nose, patted the brick wall of his station as if to promise he wouldn't turn back, and sauntered to the mouth of the alley.

No sooner had Shiro rounded the corner than he saw...him.

A younger man, roughly Shiro's age, just past the far corner of Shiro's radio station. He swayed back and forth in time with his melody, trumpet pointed at the sky as if to charm the moon and stars. And, indeed, that seemed to be his only intended audience. There was no jar at his feet, no upturned hat, no open trumpet case... He wasn't taking tips.

That explained one part of why he'd chosen to play in the middle of the night--no reason to pick a more populated time of day if he didn't expect to get paid--but...little else.

Shiro trudged slowly closer, more curious than ever. He eyed the boy's legs, bare but for a pair of what looked like basketball shorts. Odd, for the cold weather. His round glasses caught the orange of the street lamps, reflecting it back. The ends of his strawberry blond hair brushed across his shoulders as he rocked with his music, just barely long enough to touch.

He lowered his trumpet, transfixed on the night sky, perhaps too much so to notice Shiro approaching.

And Shiro suspected he should remedy that before he gave this distracted stranger a heart attack.

"Hey."

The boy turned his head, took one look at Shiro, and, in an instant, became a dictionary-worthy picture for the phrase "deer in the headlights".

His eyes widened, his jaw dropped, all his joints locked up, and his trumpet began to slip from his hands. By the time he realized he was dropping it and made a frantic grab to keep it from crashing to the concrete, Shiro had already caught it.

"Careful," said Shiro. "I'm guessing you wouldn't want to drop that." 

"I... Yeah..." The boy took his trumpet into his hands, eyes still locked, almost unblinking on Shiro. "I w... Hi." His voice was soft and breathless, stunned, perhaps shocked.

Shiro smiled in a way he hoped wasn't intimidating. "Hi. I'm sorry I startled you."

"No," said the boy. "No, no, I was just..." He laughed faintly and brought the end of his sweater sleeve to his eye. "Hi," he said again. 

"I'm Shiro." Shiro held out his hand for the boy to shake. "You?"

"I--" The boy's voice cracked. He quickly transferred his trumpet to his right hand and shook Shiro's with his left. "I-I'm Matt. Matt Holt. It's-- It's really nice to meet you. Hi. I've-- I've said that three times now. Sorry."

Shiro chuckled. "It's okay. I doubt you expected some guy with a big scar across his face to approach you in the middle of the night."

"You could say that," said Matt.

"It's just that I've been listening to you play all year and got curious enough to look for you," said Shiro. "And...to ask what a talented musician like you is doing downtown in the middle of the night." 

Matt smiled sheepishly, perhaps relaxing at least a little, and leaned against the wall behind him. "Well... It started out as sort of a signal I was sending out so a friend of mine could find me, and it sort of turned into a nightly ritual. I can't really play at my apartment without bothering my neighbors, but no one really lives on this block, right? And if I'm going to be awake at this hour anyway...I might as well practice, right?"

"Do you work late?" asked Shiro.

Matt adjusted his glasses by the temple. "Um... Something like that."

Shiro felt embarassment creep into his smile. "I'm being nosy, aren't I?"

"No!" assured Matt, aghast. "No, no, this is-- You're cool! Talking to you is cool." He hastily bent down and opened the trumpet case at his feet. "I'm just--"

In the split second between when Matt opened his trumpet case and when Matt shoved his trumpet inside, Shiro caught a glimpse of a pink triangle sewn into the black felt.

_Huh..._

"I'm just waiting for my friend again tonight," explained Matt, standing quickly. "So I'm distracted." He hesitated before adding. "I swear 'friend' isn't code for 'dealer'. I know how it looks, but I'm not meeting up with some guy in the middle of the night to buy drugs, I swear."

Shiro laughed. "Well... Whatever you and your friend are meeting for, which I'm sure is totally above-board, I hope it goes well. I, uh..." Shiro took a step back "I need to go anyway. I should get home before the sun comes up and my brother wonders where I am. But..." Shiro shrugged. "Maybe I'll see you tomorrow. Unless you're going somewhere."

Matt laughed, bright and melodic. Charming. "I've stood here this long, right?"

Shiro nodded, warmed by even that brief conversation, and took a step back. "I'm already looking forward to it. See you tomorrow, Matt."

"See you...Shiro."

* * *

Bathed in the glow of an orange street lamp, clutching a black case to his chest, stood a trumpet player.

It was cold in Altea that March night, but that cold, even with the trumpet player as underdressed as he was, had nothing to do with why he was shivering.

He looked into the sky, at the silver moon high above him, and clutched his trumpet case tighter, hugging it like a teddy bear.

"Good evening, sir! You're looking chipper!" 

Matt flinched, dragged out of his thoughts, and looked into the shadows. He relaxed at the sight of a familiar face. "I've had an exciting night. What do you have for me, though? Maybe something even more exciting?"

"See for yourself."

The man tossed a black satchel in Matt's direction, forcing him to grab it with one hand.

Eagerly, he pulled the mouth of the satchel open, and a golden gleam warmed his face from within, clashing with the streetlights.

Matt sighed with relief and dug into his back pocket for a wad of bills.

The shadow took his payment with a casual hand. "Have you located the next one yet?"

"I think so," said Matt. "But it's not going to be easy. I think someone else found it first."

"Not a problem," said the shadow. "I'm always up to the challenge. What've you got?" 

_Being apart ain't easy on this love affair_

_Two strangers learn to fall in love again_

_I get the joy of rediscovering you_

_You stand by me_

_I'm forever yours_

_Faithfully_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -clears throat- I think our completely-not-shady-at-all Holty Boy has a crush...
> 
> [My Other Fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206631/chapters/61094299)  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/youareinacoma?lang=en) (Updates only.)  
> [Discord](https://discord.gg/BtX9duD)


	4. The Strings Connecting You and Me

When Keith woke to the sound of his own clock radio, it took all of one glance at his mirror to remember what had happened the day before.

He quickly turned the radio off; he had a...roommate, now. One he was probably disturbing.

"Don't bother," grumbled Lance, sitting up and revealing a wild case of bedhead beneath his comforter. "I've been living on your schedule for a year now. I'm used to it."

Keith eyed Lance's bedhead. He looked like a wet chicken. "Uhh... Right."

Warily, Keith dragged himself to his dresser, avoiding the mirror's view as much as he possibly could without looking ridiculous. "I'm...going to get changed in the bathroom."

"Nice," said Lance blearily. "I used to hide in the closet. Not fun. You have a way better idea."

Keith stopped at his door, hand around the doorknob.

A joke that suggested he'd been spending too much time with Shiro was right on the tip of his tongue.

He realized, then, just how dangerous it was, how dangerous it would continue to be, to have Lance in his house all the time. Keith dropped his guard at home, made stupid jokes about being gay with Shiro... What if Lance heard one?

What...if Lance already heard one?

...After that rant he'd gone on about transphobes, would he even care?

Was that too much to hope for?

What if... What if Lance was—

"You good, man?"

Keith flinched. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

He let himself into the hallway and closed the door.

That was too much to hope for.

Keith locked himself in the bathroom and unfolded the shirt he'd frantically grabbed on the way to the door.

He yanked it over his head, changed into a pair of pants, and opened the medicine cabinet behind the mirror to grab his toothpaste.

He spread a dot across the bristles of his brush, recapped his toothpaste, closed the door to his medicine cabinet, looked into the mirror—

"AAAAH!"

" _AAAAH!_ "

"Dude!" Lance dove past the border of the mirror until only his eyes showed above the edge. "What did you do?!"

"What did _I_ do?!" countered Keith. "I told you I was going to change in the bathroom! Why did you follow me?!"

"I'm not the one who randomly decided he could show up in other mirrors!" screeched Lance. " _You're_ not supposed to show up in other mirrors! Just the bedroom one!"

" _You—_ "

"Lance?"

Lance's eyes widened.

Keith froze.

"You okay, buddy?" asked Lance's roommate, his voice muffled by the door.

"Yeah, mmhmm, fine!" called Lance, voice an octave barely within human hearing range. "Just saw a spider!"

"...You want me to get it?"

"No!" screamed Lance. "I mean— Uh— No, no, I got it!"

"What, really? Huh... Good job, Lance."

Lance stayed frozen in place, eyes the circumference of tin cans, until the creak of heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway, when his shoulders slumped and he hung his head with relief.

Keith almost joined him.

"Keith? Is everything okay in there?"

"Uh..."

Lance's head snapped up, eyes wide once more.

"Y-Yeah," said Keith. "Uh... Spider."

"Dude! You can't use that excuse!" squawked Lance. "That's _my_ excuse!"

"...Since when are you afraid of spiders?"

"And _that's why!_ " Lance slapped his counter. "That's _exactly why_ you can't use _my_ excuse!"

Keith narrowed his eyes through the glass.

"It just startled me," he growled, before realizing his tone was going straight to Shiro, who hadn't done anything wrong. "...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up. Go back to bed."

"...Okay," said Shiro, even more hesitant, if that were possible. "If you're sure..."

Keith ran his hand down his face.

"Way to go," grumbled Lance. "You woke up your super hard-working DJ-with-a-night-shift brother. Nice."

" _I_ woke him up?!"

"He can't hear _me!_ "

Keith clenched his teeth.

_Augh..._

Lance was right.

He was right, and those hands on his hips said he knew it.

But Keith didn't have to admit it out loud.

"I have to go to work."

"Sure." Lance crossed his arms. "Run from your problems. Brush your teeth in the kitchen. See if I care."

Keith stepped away from the bathroom counter. "Goodbye, Lance."

Lance's scoff faded to silence as Keith passed through the bathroom door.

* * *

" _—don't hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself!_ "

Lance bobbed his head in time with the music, keeping time despite trusting Hunk's beat.

At least, he had trusted Hunk, until Allura cut them off.

"Stop, stop— Hunk..."

Hunk shrank. "I was speeding up again, wasn't I?"

"Yeah, I was about to stop you myself," came Pidge's tinny voice over the intercom. "Maybe we should consider using a click track."

"I'm sorry," said Hunk, shrinking further.

"It's okay, buddy," assured Lance. "Everyone here knows you're the best bassist anyone could ever ask for. You're pulling double duty the best you can."

"But we really should consider getting a proper drummer," said Allura. "If we could start performing _live..._ "

"We'd probably make less than we make online," said Pidge. "Worry about it later. Much later."

Allura blew a lock of hair from their eyes, annoyed.

"Anyway, Hunk..." Pidge dragged them back on topic. "You okay with using a click track?"

Hunk's shoulders sank from where he'd drawn them around his ears. "Yeah... That's fine."

"Okay, good," said Pidge. "Give me five seconds."

Lance turned around. "You sure about this?"

Hunk shrugged. "If we have to, we have to."

Lance pursed his lips. He wanted to protest, he knew how something like that would bother him, if Pidge and Allura told him he needed to start using autotune, he'd be hurt.

But...Hunk was stronger than him, in so many ways, and if it was for the betterment of the whole band, Hunk could handle almost anything.

Lance envied him for that.

* * *

"Okay, dude, what's wrong with you?"

Keith looked up from the records he was organizing. "...Nothing. Nothing's wrong."

Yumi groaned with disgust. "You are the _worst_ liar... You've been glaring into— You know what? Nah. Not worth the effort. Just don't point that thing at customers."

" _Thing?_ " Keith turned around. "What _thing?_ "

"The death glare," said Yumi. "You can do that on your own time."

The door opened, and Keith and Yumi both spared it a look before returning to their previous work in silence.

Keith hadn't thought he was glaring at everything like Yumi said, but he must have been doing something out of the ordinary, even if passively, because by the end of the day, he was exhausted.

He flopped onto the living room couch and rolled over to plant his face in the back.

Part of him still wanted to talk to Lance—he still had countless questions—but a stronger part of him wanted, at least for the moment, to hide in the living room and not return to his room. Maybe for the evening. Maybe for days.

"Hey..." A warm presence, one so intimately woven into Keith's life he seemed to take up planets of space, loomed over him and set a hand on his back. "You okay?"

"...Fine," said Keith, rolling over so he could meet Shiro's eyes. "Just tired."

"Hm..." Shiro didn't seem convinced. He was too smart for that.

"...What do you say to going out for dinner today?"

Keith winced. "Out-out? To a _restaurant?_ " And sitting down at a table where people could stare at them and _eavesdrop_ and—

"Yes," said Shiro. "Out-out."

Keith groaned and draped his arm over the back of the couch. "Shiro..."

"Come on." Shiro thumped Keith's arm with the side of his hand. "There's a great Italian place on the corner of 44th and Lionheart I haven't dragged you to yet."

Keith huffed and climbed to his feet. As much as he grumbled, he knew he'd happily give Shiro anything he wanted.

And for the moment, that meant dragging his feet to a dimly-lit restaurant with overwhelming smells and fifty-odd wandering pairs of eyes.

Keith pulled his jacket up to his ears.

Shiro smiled at him gently from across the table.

Keith hunkered down in his chair.

"Okay, so now that you can't escape..." Shiro laid his arm across the table. "What's wrong?"

Keith tensed under Shiro's stern but caring gaze. As if he'd be able to escape that under any circumstance. "Nothing."

Shiro raised his eyebrows expectantly.

" _Nothing,_ " repeated Keith, slower.

" _Nothing,_ huh?" Shiro reached for the soda he'd ordered. "So, who's 'nothing's' name, and are you sure he's straight?"

Keith coughed, startled. "What—?! You—! Why would—?! Shiro, there are _people_ around!"

"Yeah," said Shiro. "And look at them."

Keith, grudgingly, did. For the first time, he noticed that there were several groups of two. And of those groups of two, most of them were two men, or two women, mostly of the same age and speaking in hushed tones, eyes either bashfully turned away or staring intently into their partners'.

Keith skeptically turned his own eyes back to Shiro.

...Okay, so the people around him probably thought he was on a date with his brother.

He wasn't sure he liked that much more.

"We can talk here," said Shiro. "So I'll ask again: What's his name and are you sure he's straight?"

Keith curled his lip. Okay, he'd rather be mistaken for being in a relationship with his brother than mistaken for having a crush on his creepy mirror stalker. "You know I have stuff going on in my life other than being gay, right?"

"I do," said Shiro. "But you've never hesitated to tell me if something was bothering you before, and you’ve also never talked to me about guys. I put two and two together.”

“It’s not a _guy!_ ”

“But you admit it’s _something._ ”

“I—”

Keith shut his mouth.

Shiro smirked.

Keith scowled back. _Sneaky bastard..._

“Don’t worry about it.” Keith crossed his arms and looked over the edge of the table at the floor. “Like I said, it’s nothing.”

“Then why aren’t you talking about it?”

"...It's fine," assured Keith. " _I'm_ fine. It's just kind of..." He sighed. "It's confusing. And frustrating. And I'm trying to adjust to something new, and... I just want to figure things out before I talk to anyone about it."

Shiro leaned forward. "And it doesn't have anything to do with a guy?"

"I swear," assured Keith.

"And you're not in any trouble?"

"I...don't think so."

"You'll tell me if that changes?"

"Yeah. Promise."

"Okay." Shiro leaned back, satisfied. "That's all I wanted to know."

Keith smiled, though a tension still twisted his gut. Shiro was just trying to be a good brother. He knew that. But...man. Shiro definitely knew how to make Keith feel uncomfortable. "Are we done talking about me now?"

"Yes." Shiro unwrapped the napkin around his silverware. "I think so."

"Great," said Keith. "So, how about you? Do you have some secret guy I should know about?"

Shiro's silverware tumbled out of his napkin and clattered noisily onto the table. "Uh..."

Keith raised an eyebrow. That was...unexpected. Shiro wasn't a clumsy person. He had twice Keith's dexterity with half the hands. Probably due to his immovable composure. So...

"What was _that?_ "

"I..." Shiro arranged his silverware to where it was supposed to sit. "I just didn't expect that question. No. No, I don't have a 'secret guy'."

"Are you..." Keith narrowed his eyes. "Are you _lying?_ "

"No—"

"Have you ever told a lie before?"

"I'm _not lying,_ " said Shiro sternly. "I don't have a secret boyfriend."

Keith raised an eyebrow.

"...I met someone I find attractive," said Shiro. "We've spoken _once._ For a few minutes. That's not a _secret guy._ That's a stranger who happens to be my type."

Keith leaned back in his chair. "Huh..." He chewed on his lip thoughtfully. "...Is this the first guy you've looked at since Adam?"

Shiro averted his eyes. "It...might be."

"That's good," said Keith. "You're healing."

Shiro shrugged a shoulder. "Of course I am. You're here."

Keith's smile started in his chest and worked its way slowly onto his face.

* * *

" _—took a perfectly good song and turned it into an emotionless, joyless drudge. I can barely even make it through the song, and it's two minutes! Two minutes is two minutes too much!_ "

"Lance..."

" _And don't get me wrong, the drummer and the guitarist have some excellent skill. Even their sax player—who I think is also their producer—has some skill hidden away in that tiny body. It's just the singer that's the problem._ "

" _Lance._ "

" _If they got rid of the singer, maybe the band would have a shot, but right now—_ "

" _Lance!_ "

The phone in Lance's hands shot up out of his reach.

"Hey!" Lance shot upright on the couch, trying to snatch his phone back from the hand that had stolen it. "Hunk—!"

"Are you watching Robbie Rock again?" demanded Hunk, one hand on his hip, the other holding Lance’s phone.

"No,” said Lance. “I'm watching Bass and Banter. Now _give it back._ "

Hunk narrowed his eyes.

The voice from Lance's phone continued on. " _—but as long as Leg Day keeps this Lance guy on their roster, they're just going to keep running in place. Up next we have—_ "

Hunk fixed Lance's phone with a glare filled with pure disgust and turned it off.

Lance tried to snatch it back. "Hey!"

"We talked about this," said Hunk, pocketing the phone in his vest pocket.

"I need to hear criticism to get better!" said Lance. "If I don't—"

"We both know that's not why you look up videos like this," said Hunk. "You can't pretend we haven't had whole conversations about it."

Lance crossed his arms and jutted out his lower lip.

Hunk sat on the couch by Lance's legs and forced him into a hug. "I love you."

Lance growled into Hunk's shoulder, refusing to uncross his arms.

"Say it," warned Hunk.

Lance grumbled.

" _Say it..._ "

"Fine! _Fine._ I love me, too. Can I have my phone back now?"

"Nope! You know the rules." Hunk let go of Lance and climbed to his feet. "I'm not letting you run wild with a weapon of self-destruction."

"It's a _phone!_ "

"And you'll get it back tomorrow, if you promise to be good."

Lance groaned and rolled over on the couch, pressing his face into the armrest. "Fine. Whatever."

"Stir fry sound good for tonight?"

Lance pressed his face harder into the couch cushions. "Mmh."

"Okay,” said Hunk. “Taking that as a yes."

* * *

When Keith and Shiro reached home again, Keith said his goodbye for the evening and retreated to his room, where, predictably, he found Lance.

Less predictably...

"Are you _knitting?_ "

Lance looked up from his yarn, nose wrinkled. "Got a problem with that?"

"No..." Keith closed his door slowly. "I just... You don't seem like the kind of person who knits."

"Well, maybe you shouldn't judge people on appearances." Lance returned his gaze to his work and counted under his breath, notably not in English, before resuming. "I only do it when I'm, uh...bored. Anyway."

Keith raised an eyebrow.

Lance didn't look up again.

"You're home late," he said simply. "Where did you go after work?"

"Uh..." Okay, so Lance knew Keith's schedule pretty well. Made sense. Still creepy. "I ate dinner with Shiro."

"You usually order in."

" _Yeah._ I _know_ that."

"So what's the occasion?"

Keith shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it across his bed. "He just wanted to talk to me about something. You know, why I've been acting weird since yesterday."

"Huh," mused Lance, barely louder than the clicking of his needles. "He's pretty observant, isn't he?"

"Unfortunately."

"Did you tell him?"

"Would you?"

"If it was Shiro? Maybe." Lance shrugged. "Seems like a pretty understanding guy to me."

_Click. Click. Click._

Keith dropped himself onto the edge of his bed. "What are you making?"

"Scarf," said Lance. "All I can make is scarves, pretty much."

"Do you..." Keith ran his thumb across the side of his finger. "Do you wear them?"

"Sometimes," said Lance. "I usually give them to friends and family. My mom has, like, fifteen."

"Are you close to your mom?"

"...She's my _mom._ "

Keith crossed his arms. "Right..." He picked at the seam of his sleeve. "Does she know about me?"

"Does _yours_ know about _me?_ "

Keith's heart lurched. "...Be glad she doesn't."

"Oof."

"...'Oof'?"

"Yep." Lance glared at his scarf-in-progress. "Big oof. Don't worry, I won't ask. Your business. Just... _oof._ "

Keith wasn't sure he understood, but he got the part where Lance said he wouldn't ask, and that was all he needed to understand.

"...So, uh..." Keith rubbed his arm. "What did you do today? Anything someone from thirty years in the past would understand?"

"I worked," said Lance stiffly. "Understand that?"

" _Yes,_ " grumbled Keith. "What do you do?"

"Question my purpose in the universe," said Lance. "Wonder if anything I do actually matters. Contemplate dropping off the grid and living in the woods."

"I meant at work," said Keith.

"Yeah, that's what I was talking about," said Lance. "I mean, I also _sing,_ but—"

"Sing?" Keith found himself inching forward on the bed. "You sing? Like... Like commercial jingles, or...?"

"No," said Lance. "Thank god... Commercials usually don't have jingles anymore anyway. Like, there's Allstate's, I guess, which is kind of ironic? And McDonald’s has this _‘bah-dah-bah-bah-bah’_ thing, if that counts, but I think that’s all I can think of. Modern commercials just try really hard to be funny, and usually fail because no one who wears a suit on a daily basis knows anything about being funny. Except for John Mulaney, I guess.”

Keith blinked. He understood...parts of that explanation. “So, what do you do, exactly?”

“I told you,” said Lance. “I sing.” He picked at a knot that had formed in his yarn. “In a band.”

Keith raised his eyebrows, but he found it difficult to do much else in response.

He watched Lance bite the yarn he’d been picking at to work the knot apart with his teeth.

That...was someone who sang? As a profession?

Lance’s eyes snapped up from his work and he glared at Keith through the mirror. " _What?_ " he asked through his occupied mouth.

"...You sing," repeated Keith.

"Yesh," grumbled Lance, turning back to the source of his frustration. "I shaid that. Twiche."

He managed to widen the knot and wiggled it until it came undone with a pop, leaving nothing of the knot behind but a kink in the yarn, which quickly disappeared into the scarf as Lance resumed his work.

"...What kind of music do you play?" asked Keith. "Do you write your own songs?"

"Nah," said Lance. "I... I mean, I've tried, but..." He sighed sharply. " _Look,_ it's just not something I'm good at. Probably too _fake_ to..."

He trailed off, distracted by another knot in the yarn.

"Just— We play covers, all right? Classic rock."

"Classic rock? Like old—"

"Like stuff _you_ would listen to, if you had any taste," snapped Lance.

Keith rolled his eyes. "You're not one of those snobs who only listens to indie rock, are you?"

"I listen to _good_ music," said Lance. "Regardless of how popular it gets. And it just so happens that the Venn diagram of stuff you listen to and stuff that's good enough to survive the test of time are two totally separate circles. Seriously, man, how do you even _find_ that stuff you listen to?"

"It's the _top 40,_ Lance. It's hard to miss."

" _Top 40,_ " scoffed Lance. "If I had my phone..."

His knitting needles stopped.

Lance’s eyes widened, his previously unmistakable frustration replaced with something harder to decipher.

"...Hang tight."

"What?" Keith watched Lance stand from his bed and run to his closet. "What are you doing?"

"Cool your jets, mullet." Lance threw piles of clothes aside, along with a stuffed elephant, a paintball gun, an empty backpack, and a striped blanket Keith wondered if Lance knitted himself.

Eventually, he'd moved enough out of the way that he was able to reach inside and maneuver something out from the back. Something with a long neck, six strings, and a blue, shimmering body.

"You..." Keith eyed the guitar. "You _play?_ "

"Used to," said Lance, stepping over the clothes and miscellaneous closet inhabitants he'd discarded. "I'm not as good as Allura, our guitarist, and I kind of ditched guitar, like...four years ago? Because I wanted to focus on my singing? But..." Lance plucked a string, carefully twisting a tuning key at the end, adjusting its sound. "If you can put up with me being rusty, I can play you some real music, the really old-fashioned way."

Keith inched closer to the edge of his bed, curious. That look in Lance's eye, that twinkle, the way he'd gone from annoyed and unsociable to excited in an instant... Keith wanted to know why.

"...Okay."

Lance grinned. "Great! Just...let me get this thing tuned, and let's hope the strings don't snap. They haven't been changed since, like, freshman year."

Lance plucked out a series of notes, scowled, and adjusted one of the strings. He strummed the guitar, made a face, and made another adjustment.

Keith slid back on his bed until his back met the wall behind him.

It was a little strange. Despite only knowing Lance for a couple of days, Keith had already made a direct association between Lance and stress. Direct enough that the relaxing environment Lance had invited him into felt almost jarring, like being gently cradled by a sworn enemy.

Maybe Keith had been too quick to categorize Lance into his long list of all the shitty things in his life. Like Lance said, he hadn't chosen to spy on Keith for the past year. It was just something he'd gotten used to. Something he had to get used to. He probably would have gone crazy if he hadn't.

And maybe... Maybe that it was all out in the open, they could be...friends? Maybe it was a good thing Lance had been stuck to him without his knowledge. Lance had seen a lot more of Keith than...maybe anyone. Maybe even more than Shiro had seen of him. There were things Shiro knew about Keith that Lance didn't know, sure, but...as unintentional as it was, Lance also knew things about Keith that _Shiro_ didn't know. Had seen him in situations that—thankfully—Shiro hadn't seen him in.

And he was still around.

Maybe it was because Lance had had a whole year to get used to Keith in a way Keith hadn't had the chance to do in return, but what Lance was doing, the guitar, it felt like something private, something vulnerable. After all, he'd hidden it in the back of his closet. People didn't do that with the parts of themselves they were proud of, and Keith appreciated being offered something so private.

Maybe, one day, he'd have the guts to show Lance what was in his own closet.

"Okay..." said Lance, his voice soft and satisfied. "I think we're good. You ready?"

"Yeah." Keith ran his thumb across the side of his index finger. "Hit me."

Lance nodded, adjusted his fingering on the neck, and tapped a beat out with his foot.

"Okay, this is a little before your time, but you should recognize it at least a little, if you had any childhood at all, which I _wonder_ sometimes. Anyway... One... Two... One, two three..."

_When I was a young boy_

_My mama said to me_

_There's only one girl in the world for you_

_And she probably lives in Tahiti_

_I'd go the whole wide world_

_I'd go the whole wide world_

_Just to find her_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, guys! Been kind of a rough month for health, both mentally and physically. Still not feeling great--you can always tell when I'm feeling blah because I'll start playing a whole lot of Kingdom Hearts--but I got something out! And I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> [My Other Fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206631/chapters/61094299)   
>  [Twitter](https://twitter.com/youareinacoma?lang=en)   
>  [Discord](https://discord.gg/BtX9duD)


	5. Contemptuous Tones of the Shark

The bag under Shiro's arm rustled with every step. If the trumpet he'd been expecting all through work had been playing, perhaps the rustling wouldn't have seemed so loud, but oddly, the dark alleyway was dead silent, silent enough that Shiro began to worry that Matt wouldn't be there.

At least, until he turned the corner.

"Shiro!" There Matt stood, oversized sweater and all. A massive grin broke out across his face as their eyes met. "Hey!"

"No trumpet tonight?" asked Shiro.

Matt tapped the case he'd left on the ground with his foot. It scraped quietly across the concrete. "I tried earlier, but I got kind of antsy, so..."

"Antsy?" asked Shiro, leaning his shoulder into the brick wall beside Matt. "Is something wrong?"

"Nah." Matt smirked. "Just looking forward to seeing your chiseled jaw again."

The shoulder Shiro leaned into the wall slipped, nearly bringing Shiro to his knees. "You— You were?"

Matt's smirk softened to a smile that took Shiro's breath away. "Yeah, I was."

Shiro swallowed.

Matt's smile turned nervous. "Should— Was I not supposed to say that?"

"No!" assured Shiro, hopefully quelling any potential worries that he wasn't interested or, worse, that he wasn't even tolerant. "No, no, it's not— I'm glad I made a good impression yesterday. Just surprised."

Matt released a laugh that sounded more like a relieved sigh. "Of course you did. You're— I mean, _look at you!_ "

"Well..." Shiro ran his hand over the scar on his nose. "I do have a voice _and face_ for radio. Or so I've been told."

"Whoever said that has no taste," said Matt. "Or at least, like, half-taste?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "I agree with the voice thing at least, but your face is _totally—_ " He cleared his throat. "Whatcha got there?"

"What?" Shiro followed Matt's gaze to the bag on his arm. "Oh. I knew you'd be out here for a while, so... I hope you like doughnuts."

"Doughnuts..." Matt covered his mouth with the side of his hand. Shiro thought he saw the corner of his mouth quirk up, or a smile in his eyes, but when Shiro looked closer, he realized what he really saw in Matt's eyes was a shimmer.

"...Matt?"

Matt laughed sharply. "I'm okay!" he said quickly, jerking his hand away from his face to reveal the fact that he was, in fact, smiling, but that didn't stop the tears in his eyes from rolling down his cheeks. "I'm okay, I promise."

Shiro frowned. He didn't seem okay. "Is it the doughnuts?"

"No," said Matt, waving a hand in front of his face. "Well— Kind of. But it's a good thing! The doughnuts are a good thing!"

Shiro doubted it. He sincerely doubted it. And that doubt must have shown on his face, because Matt reached up and squeezed his shoulders.

"I'm good!" he assured. "They’re happy tears. These are happy tears."

That only served to make Shiro even more skeptical. "Happy tears. Over doughnuts."

"I'm having a good day!" insisted Matt. "Like, a _really_ good day! And I have an emotional attachment to doughnuts. You know, like, doughnuts have played an important part in my life, and now you're bringing me doughnuts and it's like— It's like the opposite of when you're like 'this day can't get any worse' and then it starts to rain. You know?"

He sniffed, but he still grinned.

Shiro scanned Matt's face, his smile, looking for lies, for reasons to be concerned. He couldn't find any.

"Okay," he said sternly. "But if I ever do anything that makes you upset or uncomfortable, if I ever cross a line, even one I never could have guessed was there, I want you to—"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you all about it," said Matt. "Don't worry, you big softie."

He ran his hands down Shiro's biceps, raised his eyebrows, and slid them back up, palms flat.

" _Whoa..._ "

"Um."

Matt's eyes darted from Shiro's arms to his face, as if just remembering there was a person attached to them. He yanked his hands away and brought them to his forehead, laughing nervously.

Shiro blinked. Matt's train of thought was...hard to follow, to say the least. It was like it ran on tracks all its own. Everyone else was still running on steam, and he was working with magnets and microchips.

But Shiro still smiled. At least Matt was telling the truth about being okay. He must have been, if he was getting distracted by Shiro's arms.

"Everything okay?" asked Shiro, less concerned, half-teasing.

"Peachy-keen!" said Matt, face an undeniably darker red than it had been when Shiro arrived. There was no blaming the cold on this one. "Anyway!" Matt clapped his hands together and rubbed them vigorously. "Doughnuts! What kind?"

Shiro slid the plastic bag he held down his arm and caught it by just one of its handles. The sudden stop yanked the bag open so its contents, a large box with a plastic window in the top revealing all manner of assorted doughnuts, were revealed.

"What kind do you like?"

"Geez, you really went all out." Matt raised his eyebrows, clearly impressed, and Shiro gave himself a pat on the back. Maybe he still knew how to play the dating game after all. "Got any jelly-filled in there?"

"I just might," said Shiro. "Take a look."

Matt peered into the bag and opened the box with both hands. His eyes lit up behind his glasses, and he reached inside to pluck out a round, white doughnut covered in powdered sugar.

"Thank you very much, Shiro!" he said in a staccato that was halfway to sing-songy and seated himself on the sidewalk with his back to the wall.

With a little more difficulty, Shiro sat beside him and took a doughnut of his own.

When he looked up from the box, sprinkled ring in hand, he tried to sneak a glance at Matt, only to find Matt watching him.

Quick as a flash, Matt looked away, eyes to the starless sky, but Shiro had already caught him.

He got comfortable, pressing his back to the wall, and followed Matt's eyes to the sky overhead.

"You know what would really go great with these doughnuts?" asked Shiro. "Hot chocolate."

"Oh, yeah!" Matt's grin returned to him. "Or apple cider."

"Apple cider, huh?" asked Shiro. "I'll have to remember that for next time."

Matt chuckled. "I'd like to see you try to make apple cider."

"What makes you think I can't cook?"

Matt just gave him a sleepy-looking smirk that said all it needed to.

Shiro might have taken offense to the accusation if it wasn't scarily accurate.

"Hey, I'll have you know I can make a mean bowl of cereal."

Matt giggled. "So, do you have someone to cook for you, or are you the king of Altean take-out?"

Shiro felt a pleased, hopeful warmth spread from his chest to his face. Did Matt just ask if he was single?

"Just my brother," said Shiro. "But he can't cook either, so..." He smacked his lips. "Yeah. To answer your question, we're the king _and prince_ of take-out respectively."

"I'll have to fix that," said Matt, his voice soft, reverent. "So, you live with your brother? That's— ...That's good. A lot of people have trouble keeping in touch with their families."

"People like us, you mean," said Shiro, pulling back the veil they both knew was there. "Keith came out last year. I got kicked out when he was still young, and...I guess he was waiting until he was old enough to take care of himself before he followed."

"I'm sorry," said Matt.

"It's okay," said Shiro. "We have each other, which is more than I thought I'd ever get back. We don't need our parents." He took a bite of his doughnut as if he could swallow his still-lingering resentment with it. "What about you? Family? Siblings?"

Matt shook his head and looked into the jelly of his half-eaten doughnut. "No… Just my dad. He doesn't really... _understand_ some things about me, but he tries."

"And this friend you meet up with...?"

Matt turned to face Shiro, confusion in his eyes. "Huh? Oh—!" The confusion passed quickly, replaced by mirth. "No! No, no, no— Hahah, no, I'm single."

Shiro allowed himself a little more hope. _Single._

"So, your brother," said Matt, changing the subject. "Is he adjusting well?"

Shiro nodded. "I think so."

* * *

"So the horse is a metaphor for the president?"

"Yes."

"And the hospital is...the country?"

"More like the government specifically, but yeah, pretty much."

"Huh..." Keith crossed his ankles and leaned back on his hands, watching Lance drum his fingers on his discarded phone, one hand pulling his headphones down from his ear. Apparently, he'd intended to work on something related to "social media"—whatever that was, Keith couldn't imagine—when Keith had interrupted him. But Keith couldn't help thinking Lance looked far from upset about that. "So he's actually worse than—?"

"Than the bullshit you're dealing with now?" asked Lance. "I wish I could tell you he wasn't. From collusion to racism to working actively against the queer community to anything else you could imagine. The future sucks, Keith. It sucks, and we don't even get good music on the radio because it's so divisive and radio stations are dying so they can't afford to alienate the fascists in their audience. Meaning the only things we get on the airwaves are either boring or self-aggrandizing corporate bullshit. When you've got a _black rapper_ running for office and he's basically just trying to _bolster_ the _white racist's_ — OH, MY GOD."

Lance slapped his mattress and jumped out of bed, earbuds rolling off and clacking noisily on the bed frame.

"Uh..." Keith leaned forward. "What's wrong?"

"I just remembered I got Pixy Stix at the store the other day! I'll be right back!"

Keith reached out a hand as Lance dashed off, as if he could reach through the mirror and hold him in place.

All that did was smack the mirror with Keith's fingernails, and he waved his hand to shake out the responding jolt of pain that shot into it. " _Ow._ "

Keith looked from his hand to the mirror and saw his own reflection, Lance already too far away for the mirror to keep their connection going.

Keith nursed his hand a moment longer before leaning back on it, waiting patiently for Lance's return.

He came back rather quickly, a fistful of what looked like straws in his hand.

He ripped the end off one, tilted his head back 90 degrees, and tipped its contents into his mouth. Which seemed to be… Well, it _looked_ like pure sugar or something, but it couldn’t actually be that, right?

“Why do you sing?”

“ _Mmph?_ ” Lance lifted his head, brow furrowed in accusation. “What do you mean _why?_ ”

“You’ve got a lot of complaints about the music industry,” said Keith. “I’m just trying to figure out why you have a band when you don’t act like you want to be on the radio.”

Lance stopped. Just...stopped. Not a word left his mouth, not a glimpse of emotion crossed his face. Keith wasn't aware that was possible for Lance.

And then, just as quickly as he'd stopped, he started talking again.

"Talking to you is officially weird." Lance crossed his room back to his bed and flopped down on the blankets. "Really, really weird."

"What do you mean?" asked Keith. Sure, there was the whole...mirror thing. And the...being from two different decades thing. But it seemed like Lance had gotten used to that ages ago.

Lance pulled his feet onto the bed and gestured with both hands over his knees, one still full of Pixy Stix. "Okay, so there's this thing called a parasocial relationship."

"A para-what?"

"Parasocial," said Lance. "Hunk made me watch this whole documentary series on it once, when we started getting traction as a band, because it's like— So, the way I understand it is like, when you're a fan of some celebrity or whatever, you start getting it in your head that you're practically friends or something. Like, that's how your brain sees it. But see, the thing is, that celebrity doesn't have a clue who you are. It's totally one-sided. And also..." Lance waved his hand in a vague, dismissive gesture. "Also, you're not seeing the whole picture, only who the celebrity is when they're at their best, so the person that weird part of your brain thinks you're friends with isn't even a real person."

"And..." Keith crossed his arms. "You think we have this para-whatever—"

"Parasocial."

"This half-relationship," said Keith. "But we don't. You didn't just see the _polished_ parts of me or whatever. You always saw the _least_ polished parts of me." Much to Keith's embarrassment. "You probably have a better grasp on the real me than anyone."

"But _you_ don't know who _I_ am!" insisted Lance, poking himself in the chest with his Pixy Stix.

"I'm _trying_ to—"

"I know, I know, I know, but _look._ " Lance waved his hands around frantically, eyes closed tight. "Listen..."

Lance stepped down from his bed and crept closer to the mirror, stopping exactly where Keith was seated forty years in the past. Nearly pressed to the mirror, he opened his eyes and bore into Keith's gaze, his own narrowed with severity.

"I've been telling you everything about me for months."

Keith blinked, taken aback. "...You what?"

"Every stupid thought that goes through my head," said Lance. "Every fear, every hope, my whole past, I've already told you _everything._ Even what you just asked about why I went into music. You weren't listening, so it was easy. But now—"

"Now I am," said Keith.

"Now you are," said Lance. "And my idiot parasocial brain is still like, 'It's just Keith! You know, _Keith!_ Your buddy! You can tell him anything!'" Lance looked away, scratching the back of his head. "But you— You're not my buddy. You're just a stranger I know a lot about. I mean, look." Lance slapped his chest, eyes on Keith again. " _Look at me!_ I'm sitting here telling you all about all my feelings on _why I can't talk to you about my feelings._ " He pushed a hand through his hair. "And buddy, let me tell you, there is some _dissonance_ here. It's like a monkey is playing piano in my brain."

Keith froze, mouth-half open, protest on the tip of his tongue but frozen in place by Lance's truly bizarre comparison. Before he could push past the strangeness, however, Keith heard a dull click from the living room.

More like...several dull clicks, actually.

Like a key sliding into a keyhole.

" _Shit,_ what time is it?"

"Huh? Oh." Lance turned around and stretched his whole body out to grab his phone from his bed. "Uhhh, 1:53 in the morning."

" _Shit!_ "

Keith leapt to his feet and hurried to his light switch to turn the lights off.

"Dude, why are you freaking out?" asked Lance. "You don't have a curfew."

"No," hissed Keith. "But if Shiro—"

"Keith?" Shiro rapped his knuckles against Keith's door. "Are you still awake?"

Keith closed his eyes and leaned into the wall by his door, head hanging back.

_If Shiro knows I'm still awake, he's going to have questions._

Accepting defeat, Keith pushed himself off the wall and opened the door.

The first thing Keith saw of Shiro was his skeptical, narrowed eyes.

"What are you doing awake? You have work tomorrow."

"I know," said Keith. "Just lost track of time."

"Doing what?" asked Shiro.

"Uh..."

Shiro frowned. "...Do I need to look under your bed for a b—"

"No!" Keith crossed his arms. "No, you don't have to— ...I'm not sneaking anyone into my room."

"Because you know you wouldn't have to hide anything from me, right?" Shiro set his heavy hand on Keith's shoulder. "I'm not our parents. If you ever meet anyone you want to bring home, I'd be happy to meet whoever it is."

"I _know,_ Shiro, I... I know." Keith rubbed his arm. "But it's not that. We already had this talk. I know I could tell you. It's not a guy. I was just..." He shifted his weight from foot to foot. "...talking. To myself."

Shiro's eyes softened, and Keith cursed internally. Wrong thing to say.

"What were you talking to yourself about?" he asked, all gentle concern. All the perfect older brother.

"Uh..." Keith pressed his back to the wall, and his eyes darted to Lance, who was watching Keith and Shiro with wide, curious eyes. "The...future...?"

"The future," repeated Shiro, his voice low, understanding. Damn it, Keith hated lying to Shiro. "Well, you don't have to worry about that. No matter what, you'll always have me to fall back on."

Keith smiled. "Yeah, I know, just..." He nudged Shiro's arm, the one that stopped short. "Don't do anything crazy."

"You don't have to worry about that," said Shiro. "My biking days are behind me." He rubbed the scarred end of his arm, and an odd smile touched his lips.

All right, now Keith was the curious one. "What are you so happy about?"

Shiro's eyes met his. For an instant, he feigned ignorance. Then he laughed. "All right, you caught me. It's the guy."

"The guy? What guy?"

"The one I told you about when we got Italian," said Shiro, shifting his weight to his left foot, a sheepish smile on his face. “I, uh… I invited him over tomorrow.” His quiet, nervous bliss might have looked cute if not for the fact that Keith was _slightly_ panicking about Lance being in earshot. Shiro was about to out himself to a total stranger, and he didn't even know it. What if Lance—?

"I'm starting to think I have a chance with him."

Okay, shit. Unless Lance was _really_ dense, the cat was decidedly out of the bag.

"Uh, y-yeah?" Keith rubbed his arms. "How can you tell?"

"Just the way he was looking at me," said Shiro. "The way he acted. You know, that sort of...antsy way someone can't sit still when they're nervous and excited at the same time." He leaned forward, head lowered conspiratorially. "He, uh... He also said I had a 'chiseled jaw'."

Keith laughed—half-amused, half-anxious—and took a side-step between Shiro and Lance, blocking Lance's view, as if that could protect Shiro from whatever he must have been thinking somehow. "Yeah, that...that pretty much gives it away."

Shiro smiled, nervous, sweet. "I hope so. It's been so long since I've even _thought_ about dating someone. I'm...honestly kind of scared I'm going to blow it."

Keith frowned sympathetically. For once, he allowed any thought of Lance to leave his mind. "That won't happen. Everyone who meets you loves you, Shiro."

Shiro's anxious smile faded. "Not everyone."

"Fine," said Keith. "Anyone with a brain."

"Are you calling our parents brainless?" asked Shiro, eyebrow raised.

"I'm calling our parents total mouthbreathers," said Keith.

Shiro looked at him. Just looked at him. Long enough for Keith to feel self-conscious. Then, before Keith could figure out what was happening, Shiro pulled him into a hug.

Keith closed his eyes, comforted by Shiro's familiar warmth, and easily returned the embrace.

"I'm so glad to have you back," whispered Shiro.

"It's been a year," said Keith.

"I know," said Shiro. "But I'm going to be glad every day for the rest of our lives."

He pulled back, ruffled Keith's hair like he was still twelve, and took a step back into the hallway.

"Now go to bed," said Shiro. "Before you _really_ hate yourself tomorrow."

"I will," said Keith. "Good night."

"Good night, Keith." Shiro rapped his knuckles on the doorway. "I love you."

Keith felt himself smile. "I love you, too."

Shiro nodded and walked away, disappearing through the doorway of his own bedroom.

Keith closed his door.

Hand on the doorframe, he closed his eyes as well, and took a deep breath, steeling himself for anything.

Curling his hands into fists, he turned around. "Well?"

Lance still sat on the floor, having not moved since the last time Keith looked at him, eyes still as wide.

"Dude," said Lance, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm so invested."

Keith— Well, Keith _thought_ he'd been prepared for anything, but clearly, he hadn't, because _that_ was the _last_ thing he expected Lance to say.

"...What?"

"The _romance!_ " cried Lance, throwing his body forward. "The _drama!_ I feel like I should have gotten some popcorn for that. Dude, you _have_ to keep me up to date on this telenovela. The Shiro soap. I _need_ to know what happens. Do you know the guy's name? How did they meet? How long has Shiro been crushing on him? I _have to know._ "

"I—" Keith furrowed his brow. " _That's_ what you have questions about?"

" _Duh!_ " Lance laughed, excitement bursting out of him, and he tipped forward, hands on the borders of the mirror. "Are you kidding me?! I love this stuff! I _live_ for the—oh-my-god-you-thought-I-was-a-homophobe."

Keith flinched. Right on target.

The horror that took over Lance's expression was immediate, but just as immediately pushed down.

"Buddy." Lance shifted so he sat perched on his knees. "Keith. _Asere._ The first thing you ever heard me say, the first words I ever uttered in your, like, _aware presence,_ were about some shithead transphobe. Remember that? Remember me being pissed? Because _I_ remember me being pissed. Why would I be defensive of trans people and not be cool with gay people?"

"I don't _know!_ " snapped Keith. "Maybe transsexuals—"

"Transgender," correct Lance. "And it's an adjective. You can just say trans if you want."

"Maybe _trans people_ " corrected Keith, "have more rights than gay people in the future!"

"Does that _really_ look like the direction the world's going in?" asked Lance, deadpan. " _Really?_ "

"The direction things are going in?" Keith marched to his mirror and bent down until his face was inches from Lance's, separated only by a pane of glass and about thirty years. "When I was a kid, it was almost _cool_ to be gay. Things didn't get better, they got _worse._ People— People started getting _sick,_ and some religious nutcases said it was some kind of a—a plague sent down from _God_ and—"

"Shit," breathed Lance. "I forgot about that."

"Lucky you," said Keith. "I don't get that luxury."

"That's not _my_ fault!" squawked Lance. "Why are you on _my_ case about this? You think I wouldn't change things for Shiro if I could? You think I wouldn't pop across timelines and personally slap anyone who gave Shiro crap if I could? What am I supposed to do?"

Keith pursed his lips and looked away. He didn't really know why he was mad at Lance. Maybe he was just...

Maybe he was just scared.

"I'm on _your_ side, Keith," said Lance. "And in thirty years—"

"In thirty years, I'll have spent most of my life scared," said Keith. "If I even last that long. People like me and Shiro—"

"Whoa, wait, _you and_ Shiro?"

"People like _us,_ " snapped Keith, "don't live very long."

He stole a look back at Lance.

Lance, for once, kept his mouth shut.

"I'm going to brush my teeth," snapped Keith, already on his way to the door. "If that's _okay_ with you."

"Keith." Lance's feet hit the floor as he jumped up. "Jesus Christ, _Keith—!_ "

Keith slammed the door.

* * *

Keith slammed the door.

And Lance was pissed.

" _Keith..._ "

He pressed his forehead to the wall beside the mirror.

Yeah, life was so much easier before Keith knew Lance was there. At least then he couldn't throw a tantrum over _nothing_ instead of letting Lance talk to him.

Lance rolled over, letting the back of his head rest against his wall, and looked toward the mirror that once more only reflected his room.

"Gee, Keith, I'd _love_ to explain that I don't _care_ if you're gay—which you'd probably be able to guess if you actually _listened to me for five seconds_ —but _no, someone_ had to throw a _tantrum._ Bitch."

The door opened on the other side of the mirror, and Lance watched the back of Keith's head as he made his way to his bed.

"We gonna actually talk about this or what?"

Keith answered by yanking his blankets off his bed and silently climbing underneath, back turned to Lance from start to finish.

Lance rolled his eyes and pushed himself off the wall.

"Keith, you _fucking—_ "

_"Everyone who meets you loves you."_

_"Not everyone."_

_"Fine. Anyone with a brain."_

_"Are you calling our parents brainless?"_

What Lance had been in the process of saying died on his tongue.

For the first time in months, Lance wondered why exactly it was that Keith moved in with Shiro. Why it seemed like he showed up so suddenly, with almost nothing to his name.

Was he... Were they _both...?_

Lance shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. Maybe he shouldn't make assumptions. But...

Well...

_Maybe I should go easy on him._

"Okay," said Lance, struggling to keep his voice level. Though weak, there were still glowing embers left of his previous anger. "We'll talk about this tomorrow. Get some sleep."

Keith pulled his blankets up around his neck, like he was protecting it.

Lance moved toward his door, headed toward the bathroom.

"...Good night.”

_Once upon a time, there was light in my life_

_Now there's only love in the dark_

_Nothing I can say_

_A total eclipse of the heart_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IF YOU LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES AND ARE REGISTERED TO VOTE, THIS IS YOUR REMINDER TO DO SO. DO IT. BUT ALSO WEAR A MASK AND BE CAREFUL AND WASH YOUR HANDS.
> 
> [My Other Fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206631/chapters/61094299)  
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> (Note that on Twitter and Discord you can learn about my non-fic writing projects. So like. Check those out if you're interested.)


	6. Dead Kennedys and Chocolate Cupcakes

Lance lifted his head from his pillow, groggy and bleary. One glance in the mirror told him why.

Keith was gone. All Lance saw was his own reflection. Meaning either Lance slept through Keith's alarm, or Keith woke up before it went off, and he left hours prior. Probably because he didn't want to deal with Lance yet.

Well, that was fine. Keith couldn't run away forever. They slept in the same room. He'd have to come back eventually. Then they'd talk for real. Get everything out in the open. All their feelings. Both of them. Like adults.

Keith would come around when he was ready. Lance was in no hurry.

He took his phone off the nightstand and checked the time.

"Eleven fifty-five," he murmured, setting his phone face-down, eyes closed. "No wonder I feel like trash. I haven't slept in this late since—"

_Since Keith._

Lance shook his head frantically and slapped his cheeks to wake himself up. He didn't even _know_ Keith. Sure, Keith had been a stable, reliable part of his life for the past year, but knowing _about_ someone and _knowing_ someone weren't the same thing. Keith could probably die and Lance wouldn't feel anything more than the same passive melancholy he'd feel for a stranger. He wasn't going to get anything done if he sat around moping over Keith avoiding him.

Lance pushed his blankets off and shuffled out of bed, rubbing the back of his neck. As his feet hit the floor, he noticed, for the first time, the clattering of dishes from the kitchen, the telltale sign of a Hunk Brand™️ Cooking Experiment. With a yawn, Lance lazily took to his closet to dress himself.

It wasn't until he was halfway down the hall that he realized he had dressed himself in the closet _for no reason._

Lance hovered at the edge of the kitchen linoleum, barefoot, examining the state of the counters. Namely that he couldn't even see the counters under all the mixing bowls, measuring cups, and baking ingredients.

Lance scratched his stomach and turned his attention to the open refrigerator door, eyebrow raised. "Did you rob a bakery?"

"Nope!" called the refrigerator door. "Getting ready for the bake sale."

Lance's hand froze on his stomach. _Uh..._ "That's not tomorrow, is it?"

"Actually, it's the day _after_ tomorrow." Hunk appeared over the top of the refrigerator door and crossed his arms along the upper edge. "I just thought I'd get a head start on it so I'm not freaking out tomorrow."

Lance took another quick look around the room. "So...this _isn't_ you freaking out."

Hunk followed his gaze to the counters, smacking his lips, face falling to a deadpan expression, looking quite unimpressed with himself as he seemed to realize, for the first time, the state the kitchen was in. "I might be freaking out a little."

"Yeah. A little." Lance rounded the fridge door. "Scoot over. Let me eat something, then I'll take some of the load off."

"Cool." An easier expression crossed Hunk's face, and Lance's heart felt easier with it. "Thanks, Lance."

Lance smiled. "No prob."

* * *

Keith glared at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror as he washed his hands. He looked pale and unhealthy under the fluorescent lights, surrounded on all sides by the white employees-only bathroom walls.

He _felt_ pale and unhealthy. His mind swirled with conflicting, confusing thoughts.

Was he in the right for snapping at Lance? Should he stand his ground and demand an apology? Was it an unhealthy, self-destructive choice to be the one to apologize if he was in the right? Or did Lance deserve an apology? Was it worse for them both if he didn't grit his teeth and apologize?

Keith didn't know. His parents would have told him to apologize. But his parents would have told him to apologize if someone spit mud in his face. It was hard to tell what was standing up for himself and what was being a bully.

Shiro would know. Maybe he wouldn't if he was in the same situation, but he'd know if it was Keith asking. He'd never shied away from telling Keith when he was in the wrong _or_ from telling Keith he deserved better.

But Keith couldn't go to Shiro. Shiro didn't know about Lance, and Keith didn't know how to explain Lance to him without seeming insane. It was one thing to hear a voice or feel a presence, but to see a whole, corporeal figure in his bedroom mirror, a boy who said he was from the future, was nuts even to _Keith's_ ears.

Keith leaned over the basin of the sink and splashed water in his face. For once, he couldn't lean back on Shiro. He needed to find his own way out.

Keith yanked a paper towel out of the dispenser and scrubbed his face with both hands before chucking it in the garbage bin. He'd have to figure it out by the time he got home.

"Fuck..."

He opened the bathroom door and stepped out into the store.

A jewel case hit the wall beside his head and shattered into a dozen pieces.

" _Fuck!_ "

"The sign says _Nazi punks fuck off!_ " roared Yumi, her normally disaffected voice unusually wrought with emotion. Keith peered around the rack of 8-tracks to see her shoving a man twice her height toward the door. His head was shaved, which wouldn't have been a problem on its own, but Keith could see enough letters peeking out from the lapels of his jacket ("—ite Warri—") to figure out what kind of crowd he ran with.

It wasn't the first time Keith and Yumi had dealt with someone like that in the store. Apparently, part of being Neo-Nazi was being enough of an idiot to think it was punk. But most of the time, Yumi just had to tell them to get the fuck out and they'd drop a slur and a middle finger before doing exactly what she said.

This guy seemed more stubborn.

"If you break any more of my merchandise, I'll break your fucking face!"

"What, with your tiny little Geisha hands?" The man laughed and raised the short stack of jewel cases he held. "Good luck reaching, Jillie Chan." He chucked another at the wall, this time aiming behind the counter, and it split into just as many pieces as the one that had nearly crashed into Keith's face. "You gonna jump six feet off the ground and Jet Li me in the nose? _Ohh, me so strong, me know kung—_ "

**_WHACK_ **

With a sound barely audible by human ears, the man doubled over and the CDs he held clattered to the floor at his feet.

Yumi stood up straight. Though her face was still as dry and expressionless as ever, Keith could see the faintest glimmer of pride in her eyes from that beautifully executed dick punch.

"Guess you're right. I _can't_ reach your face."

Keith could have laughed. Almost did. But the creep recovered fast. He lunged for Yumi's throat. There was no time.

Keith dropped to the floor and grabbed the broken jewel case at his feet. In a single swift, fluid motion, Keith flung the case at the bastard of the hour and it split across his nose, folding backward, sharp plastic edges sliding across his face.

He cried out and doubled over again, angry this time, both hands clutching his left eye.

His right rolled back, up, toward Keith landing on him for the first time.

Teeth gritted, he reached for his pocket.

Keith heard a click.

He saw a flash of steel.

He thought he blinked. It _felt_ like blinking. It came as naturally as blinking, happened just as quickly as blinking.

But sprinting between racks of cassette tapes at full tilt wasn't blinking. Whacking a man's arm in a place he instinctively knew would make him drop his weapon wasn't blinking. Dropping to the floor to grab the knife before it hit the linoleum and sweeping his adversary's legs with his own on the way down wasn't blinking. Kneeling on his enemy's chest and pressing a knife to his throat wasn't blinking.

Keith took a deep breath. Whatever burst of adrenaline had brought about all that faded away, but there was fear in the eyes of the man he had pinned to the floor, and for the sake of his safety and Yumi's, he wanted that fear to stay exactly where it was.

"If you're going to pull a knife on me, you better know how to use it," growled Keith, keeping his voice steady, making sure the only one who knew how freaked out he was over his own actions was himself. He tossed the knife aside, sliding it across the floor away from Yumi, and yanked the skinhead up by the front of his "White Warrior" t-shirt, dragging him to his feet.

"Fuck off," growled Keith, shoving the asshole toward the door.

Whatever bravado he'd had before had run out. He scampered through the door like a cockroach under an incandescent bulb and disappeared beyond the storefront window.

Keith turned around and pressed his back to the wall, shaking legs giving out under him and sliding him to the floor.

"...Damn," said Yumi, her usual disaffected tone returning to her voice in an instant. "Never knew you had it in you, Kogane."

Keith rested his arms on his knees and leaned his head into the wall. "Yeah. Me neither."

"Where'd you learn how to do that?" asked Yumi.

Keith shrugged. "Nowhere. Instinct, I guess."

"Huh." Yumi crossed the floor to the pile of broken plastic behind the counter. "You should meet my poker buddies sometime. That was one hell of a bluff."

Keith smiled in spite of himself. "So what do we do now? Call the cops?"

Yumi climbed to her full, diminutive height and gave Keith a look that said more than enough.

 _All right..._ "Hey— You know he probably would have just bought something and left without starting a fight if you didn't say anything. You probably could have made money today instead of losing it."

Yumi tossed a few shards of plastic into the garbage bin beside the counter. "Real convincing, coming from you. Look, if a farmer lets foxes in his chicken coop, he's not gonna have chickens anymore. Just foxes. Cat in a bird's cage? You got a cat. Wolves in a herd of sheep? You got wolves. If you let a Nazi in a punk store, you're gonna have a Nazi store."

She flicked another piece of plastic at Keith where he sat. It landed harmlessly in his lap.

"Look," said Yumi. "I get that you're, like, _worried_ about me or whatever..." She mimed gagging. "But I've been dealing with Nazis in this store a lot longer than you have. I know what they're like. And by the way."

She slapped her hand on the phone behind her, her bracelet jingling with the sharp sweep of her arm.

"You need to call Shiro."

Keith drew his eyebrows together. "What? Why?"

"Because Nazis are cowards," said Yumi. "You saw the way that loser started whimpering when you put his own knife to his throat. People turn to fascism _because_ they're cowards. That's their whole schtick. They feel powerless, so they seek power by gathering up a bunch of their loser buddies and picking on people they think are weaker. And that's why most of the freaks we turn away just leave. The reason that last guy didn't is that he's usually around his buddies and was too stupid to remember they didn't come in with him."

Keith shrugged. "So?"

"He's gonna come back with his friends," said Yumi. "You're gonna want your own friends."

Keith pushed himself to his feet, leaning his weight into the wall. "Shiro has a...date or something tonight. I don't want to worry him."

Yumi rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Whatever. Your funeral, dude."

* * *

"So, are Pidge and Allura coming to the bake sale?" asked Lance, dusting off his flour-covered hands on his borrowed apron.

"Nah," said Hunk, gazed fixed hard on the dough he was braiding. "When I asked Pidge, they got all weird. They said they were busy and wouldn't tell me what they were busy with."

"All right, that _is_ weird," said Lance. "Don't they usually jump at the chance to geek out with you about an experiment?"

"Yeah," said Hunk. "That's why I'm thinking it might be, like, a _doctor's appointment_ or something."

"A 'doctor's appointment'?" Lance raised an eyebrow. "Like...a _therapist_ or— _Oh!_ " Lance's jaw dropped. "HRT?"

"Maybe," said Hunk.

"But Pidge always said they were fine with just..." Lance gestured vaguely, trying to put all the complicated ways Pidge explained it to him into simpler words. "... _social_...transition."

"Exactly," said Hunk. "Which is why they might want to keep it a secret for a while if they changed their mind. You know how stubborn they are."

"Good point." Lance flicked the lights on in the oven, curious about the state of their cupcakes. "What about Allura?"

"Allura? Oh, uhhh..." Hunk cleared his throat. "She has a...daaaaaaate..."

"Another one?" Lance turned the oven light off and frowned at his reflection in the glass. "...She must really like this guy."

"Yeah," said Hunk. "She, uh, seems to."

Lance narrowed his eyes, and his reflection glared back at him. He thought he'd be more upset about Allura going out with the same guy—who wasn't him—twice in less than a week.

But...he wasn't. His heart wasn't all twisted up, his stomach wasn't shoving his other organs aside on its way to his throat...

Maybe it was because all his stress was currently being used up on the whole Keith situation. Or maybe it was just because hanging out with Hunk made stuff like that easier.

He couldn't have been over Allura _already,_ could he? Sure, she rejected him ages ago, but she'd just started dating someone else. It sucked the day Lance really met Keith...for all of an hour before he realized Keith could see him, and then he got understandably distracted. But he never really went back to thinking about Allura.

...But he _did_ start looking at videos criticizing his singing, didn't he? And Hunk was right, that was self-destructive behavior. What if Lance was just repressing all his feelings about Allura liking someone and it was all bubbling to the surface without him noticing and he'd break down in the middle of a livestream or—

"Lance?" Hunk set his hand on Lance's back, eliciting a flinch out of him. "You okay, buddy?"

Lance turned around, smiling. It was probably stupid to freak out over the fact that he wasn't freaked out, huh?

"Yeah, I'm fine!"

Hunk frowned.

"Seriously, Hunk, I'm _fine._ " Lance slapped himself in the chest in a grand gesture toward himself.

Hunk didn't seem convinced. "Okay... Sure." He turned around and took a breath, inspecting the mess they made. "Well... We've done enough today. Let's go ahead and clean up after we bake the last of the bread."

"Hunk." Lance grabbed Hunk by his shoulders. "I'm fine."

"I know," said Hunk, averting his eyes. "I just think it'd be fun to watch another movie or something."

"Oh, uh..." Lance rubbed the back of his neck. "I... I can't, tonight. I've got plans. In my room. Online...plans."

Hunk squinted at him. And Lance could guess why. "Online plans" sounded shady as hell. But Lance couldn't think of a better excuse.

"...Okay," said Hunk. "But if I hear anything that sounds like a YouTube critic from your room, I'm breaking your door down."

"You have my word that I will not watch YouTube _at all_ tonight," said Lance. "...Well, maybe to listen to music. Not music _critics._ Just music. Promise."

Hunk sighed. "...Okay."

He hesitated, smiled, and pulled Lance into a tight hug.

And Lance felt all the tension roll out of him as easily as water from a kettle.

* * *

Keith locked the door, his back to the night air.

His pocket weighed heavy from the knife Yumi insisted he take with him.

_Look, if you're not going to call for backup, the least you can do is arm yourself._

Keith didn't exactly feel _great_ carrying a Neo-Nazi's knife around in his jacket pocket, but if it made Yumi happy, then Keith would deal. She was irreverent and always angry about something, and she wasn't exactly Keith's _friend,_ but she cared, in her own way. Even if "her own way" meant calling him an idiot and shoving a knife at him before leaving with her friends.

Keith squinted down the sidewalk one way, then the other, just to make sure, before stepping off the curb and throwing a leg over his bike.

He revved his engine and reached for his helmet.

Halfway between his hand and the strap, he stopped.

A shadow emerged from the alley beside the shop. A shadow that quickly became two shadows, three, four.

One stepped into the orange streetlight.

His left eye was red. Like it had been scratched by a broken jewel case.

_Shit..._

* * *

Lance closed his bedroom door and looked into his mirror.

"Keith?"

All he saw was his own reflection.

He moved to his bed and picked up his knitting.

Keith was a little late. Probably still avoiding Lance. But that was okay. Lance could wait. Keith would come home eventually. Shiro was his only friend, and he couldn't afford to get a hotel just for the sake of not wanting to talk to someone. Maybe he'd sleep on the couch, but Lance could work with that. He had a compact mirror, and Keith had a living room TV. If he could hear Lance from the window, he could definitely hear him from the television screen.

Lance just had to wait for him to come home.

* * *

" _Kaugh!_ "

Keith fell to his knees, holding onto his stomach. That last kick jabbed the round, blunt end of the knife in his pocket right into his kidney.

The guy he'd disarmed to get that knife in the first place wasn't the only one who had a knife. Keith's leather jacket was doing its job, and what hits Keith took to his arms were all shallow scratches. He'd need a new one after this, but it kept him alive as long as Keith kept his guard up.

**_WHACK_ **

A steel-toed boot collided with the underside of Keith's jaw, knocking him back. The back of his skull cracked against the pavement with a sickening thud that reverberated all the way to his forehead. Before he could get up, a knee pressed into his chest, and Keith felt the cold blade of a knife against his throat.

"Remember this?" asked the red-eyed man looming over Keith. "I do. Except this time, I'm on top."

Keith laughed weakly, his abdomen too brutally bruised to manage much more.

"What's so funny, freshcut?"

Keith lifted his head, smirking deliberately. The kind of smirk he imagined Lance would have. Insufferable, punchable.

He locked eyes with his aggressor, blinking away the blur.

"I remember you pissing yourself," he rasped. "My boss was right. You're a _coward._ "

The man's eyes flared, enraged, incensed.

" _Ha-augh!_ "

Keith's stomach burned. It burned and it burned and it burned with a pain he'd never even imagined before. And yet— And yet, it was oddly—

_"Lance..."_

Even through the fog of a pain so great Keith felt like he was going to be sick, he heard a slur spat his way, one he hadn't heard in a year, not since his parents kicked him out.

That same steel toe that knocked Keith on his ass connected with his shoulder, and he opened his eyes to watch his attackers walk away.

_Home..._

Keith pushed himself onto his hands and knees. He needed to get home. Yumi was right. He should have just called Shiro.

He needed to get to Shiro.

But...how? Could he ride when he could barely see straight through the pain?

Keith pressed a hand to his side, desperately trying to keep the blood seeping into his t-shirt _inside_ his body.

Whether he crashed or bled out in an alleyway, the result was the same. At least riding home gave him a chance.

If nothing else, at least a chance to say goodbye to Shiro.

He dragged his hand up the eastern wall of Moon Swap Records, his fingerless glove protecting him from further injury.

With heavy footfalls, he dragged himself to his bike, frowning at his helmet through every heavy footfall. He’d feel silly wearing it. Like splinting his ankle when he sprained his wrist. It wouldn’t save him.

Keith knocked his helmet off the handle of his bike the moment he got close enough. It clattered to the sidewalk where it would probably get stolen in the night.

Keith couldn't find it in himself to care. It probably wouldn't matter in an hour anyway.

Taking his bike off its kickstand and walking it back from the sidewalk was so much more painful than he'd ever imagined so simple an action could be.

He instinctively took his hand off his side to twist his handlebars forward and felt sick as a wet warmth pooled and spilled down his side.

He urgently pressed his hand into his wound again, wincing against the nauseating pain.

He lifted his legs off the pavement and into position, took a shaking breath, and set off down the street.

For the entire journey to his apartment, he found himself debating whether he should speed up or slow down, to drive carefully or to get home as fast as possible. More than once, those debates were interrupted by the sound of someone honking and swerving around him because he'd stopped in the middle of the road without realizing it.

Keith wasn't sure how long it took. Less than ten minutes? All night? By the time he stopped in front of his apartment, he could barely make out the shape.

Tunnel vision. Shit. He didn't have much time left.

Keith tried to raise his leg off his motorcycle, but his heel hit the back of his seat and knocked the whole thing over with a crash that would have probably made him wince if he'd really been able to hear it.

Head heavy, body like lead, Keith dragged himself to the stairs.

Somehow, he found the strength to climb. He was sure it must have hurt, but he couldn't feel much of anything anymore. It occurred to him that, even if he managed to keep most of his blood inside his body, it was still flowing to places it wasn't supposed to be, just like...

Just like...

Keith found the door to his apartment from habit alone. He couldn't make out the 5E on the door anymore. With a trembling hand, he stabbed the doorknob with his key several times before shoving it into the keyhole.

"Shiro..."

Keith weakly twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open.

With every ounce of strength Keith had left, he cried out.

"Shiro...!"

His call sounded faint and garbled to his own ears, but it should have been loud enough for Shiro to hear him.

It wasn't. Shiro didn't come running the way he had when Keith was young and skinned his knee or bloodied his nose.

The refrigerator across from the entrance Keith wobbled in held the answer. Keith couldn't read the note, but he could see the paper, pinned in place by an orange magnet.

Shiro had gone out. For groceries or to pick up dinner or because he was needed at work for some reason.

He was gone. There was no one there to help. Keith was going to die, and he was going to die alone.

Strength sapped from him, Keith sank to his knees. A dull thud reverberated all around him as he hit the floor.

He looked down the hallway.

* * *

Lance heard his door open, but when he looked up from his knitting, all he saw was his own door still firmly closed.

Cool. That meant it wasn't _his_ door that was open. It was _Keith's._

"About damn time," grumbled Lance, scowling at his own knitting. "Where the hell have _you_ been? Did you find some cliff to brood at or what?"

**_WHACK_ **

Lance yanked his head up.

The hell was that? It sounded like Keith punched the wall or something.

**_WHACK_ **

"Dude, what the hell?" Lance threw his half-knitted scarf at the skein he'd been using and scrambled off his bed. "What are you _do—?!_ "

Lance went still, silent.

Keith's face had come into view. Lance could see him in the edge of the mirror. He looked worn, haggard, exhausted. He was drenched in sweat, and his hair, more a mess than Lance had ever seen it, stuck to his forehead, to the sides of his face.

"...Keith?"

**_WHACK_ **

Keith stumbled forward and slapped his hand into the wall to keep himself steady.

Lance watched, speechless, confused, until Keith's legs gave out from under him and he hit the floor.

**_WHAM_ **

"Keith!"

Lance knelt in front of his mirror, hands instinctively reaching out, to help, to figure out what was wrong, to do _something,_ but—

**_clack_ **

All he did was jam his fingers against the glass.

"Keith—" Breathless, Lance pressed his hands to the surface, that barrier that separated him from Keith, from that daily constant in his life the past year, from his friend. "What happened? What's wrong? What do I—"

Lance sucked in a breath.

He saw it.

For the first time, he noticed.

The red. The blood, covering Keith's hand, caking it in layers, shades, thin in some places, thick in others, varying in value like an artist's study of a single color, a color that darkened the black of Keith's shredded leather jacket and the denim of his jeans.

How much of that vital color had he lost? How long had he been like that? How could no one have helped him?

"Lance..."

Lance yanked his eyes from the red staining Keith's floor, dragging them instead to Keith's face.

His eyes were open, barely. Fluttering, their indigo color barely peeking through dark, long eyelashes, but fiercely connected to Lance's eyes.

" _Lance..._ " repeated Keith, his voice broken, raspy, frail.

" _What?!_ " snapped Lance, frustrated, scared. "What do you expect me to do?! Why would you come to me?! I can't—!" Lance slapped his mirror with the palm of his hands. "I can't _do anything!_ "

Keith's arm—not the one stained in red, clutching his side, but the one he'd landed on when he fell—moved out from under him, reaching, searching.

It landed on the mirror, his first two fingers landing delicately on the glass, like the landing of a moth.

Lance reached for those fingers, teeth clenched, forehead meeting the glass. " _Why the fuck—?_ "

Keith's fluttering eyelashes stopped twitching.

"Keith—" Lance sucked in a breath and lifted his head, hands curling into fists. "Keith, that's not fucking funny! Wake up! _HEY!_ "

A loud bang echoed through the apartment. For an instant, Lance thought it was from his own, that his front door had been broken in. He was quickly proven wrong.

" _SHIRO?!_ "

A frantic, unfamiliar voice carried from the kitchen into Keith's room, into Lance's. Loud, urgent footsteps pounded down the hallway, sounding to Lance's ears as if they were coming down his own, but it wasn't his own doorway the figure burst through. It was Keith's.

Lance did a double-take. At first, through the fog of his tears, he thought he saw Pidge in the mirror. But it wasn't them. A little too tall, face a little too long.

" _Keith!_ " gasped the lookalike, breathless, shaken. They dropped by Keith's side, turning him onto his back.

"Keith! Keith, look at me! Hey!"

They patted Keith's face frantically, trying to pull a response from him. When Keith didn't respond, they dropped their ear to his chest.

Their eyes widened.

" _Shit!_ " They yanked their head up. "No, no, no, no, no—!"

Lance covered his mouth with his hands.

Sick— He was definitely going to be sick. Keith couldn't— He _couldn't—!_

"Keith...!"

The figure looked from Keith's blank, lifeless face to the hand he'd left lying by the glass that separated them to the glass itself.

His eyes widened. For an instant, Lance swore that the stranger could _see him._

And an instant later, Lance didn't care if he could.

The vision Lance saw in the mirror vanished, replaced by only his own pale, horrified face.

That had never happened. The only time Lance had ever stopped seeing Keith in the mirror, from the moment he'd started, was if he left the room.

For Keith to be lying on the floor, right in front of Lance, and to just disappear...

Lance could only think of one reason why that might happen.

"No... _No..._ "

He closed his eyes, bowed his head, buried his face in his hands...

" _Keith..._ "

...And he cried.

_I'm falling down a spiral, destination unknown_

_Double-crossed messenger, all alone_

_Can't get no connection, can't get through_

_Where are you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3
> 
> [My Other Fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206631/chapters/61094299)  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/youareinacoma?lang=en)   
> [Discord](https://discord.gg/BtX9duD)


	7. Heartbeat

Hunk woke up thirsty.

Normally, he kept a glass of water at his bedside, but he'd been lazy that after all the baking he and Lance did, so he just went straight to bed and hoped he could sleep through any thirst he experienced. The regret set in just an hour past midnight.

Groggy and with what felt like a mouthful of hairy sand, Hunk dragged his feet to the kitchen and bypassed the filter from the fridge in favor of water directly from the tap. In what couldn't have been more than three gulps, Hunk downed half his glass and took a break to breathe, to wake up a little more.

That was when he noticed the sobbing.

Sharp, breathy, wet, gasping for air, _desperate._ Like crying wasn't enough. Like there was too much pain for the tears to express. The sound would have been heartbreaking enough if the crying had come from a stranger.

But when Hunk looked over the countertop and into the living room, it was _Lance_ he saw curled up on the couch, clutching his knees, shaking violently with every broken, gasping sob.

Hunk slammed his glass down and all but ran to Lance's side.

"Buddy— Lance— Hey, look at me." He took Lance's face in his hands, forced him to meet his eyes.

Even in the dark, in the moonlight from the fire escape window, Hunk could see just how hard Lance had been crying, and for how long, in the red swelling around his eyes, all around the fear and the anguish and the agony Hunk could see pouring through his wide, fraught, floundering gaze.

"Lance..." whispered Hunk. "What's wrong?"

"I— I don't _know!_ " Lance grabbed onto Hunk's arm like it was the only thing keeping him from drowning in an ocean Hunk couldn't see. " _I don't know!_ It feels like my heart's being ripped apart by a whole pride of lions— Teeth biting, tearing— _Claws—_ And I don't know _why!_ "

Lance's eyes were as wide as they could possibly go as they bore into Hunk's, digging for answers, as if Hunk had them, and _god,_ Hunk wished he did.

But if the question was, "Do you love your best friend enough to hold him through whatever he's going through, even if you aren't sure what it is?" Well... He had an answer for that one.

Hunk climbed onto the couch beside Lance and pulled him close until Lance collapsed against his chest, balling his hands into shaking fists in the fabric of his shirt.

Hunk ran his hand down Lance's trembling back.

Even if Lance was going to cry all through the night, he wouldn't do it alone.

"I'm right here, buddy. Right here."

* * *

**_FLASH_ **

—searing pain—

—dizzy—confused—

—bells--ringing bells—

—green sky—

— _Lance_ —

**_FLASH_ **

Keith woke with a jolt. His eyes flew open, and he found himself staring at a white ceiling, heart pounding, aching, like there was something inside trying to escape.

**_Thump_ **

**_Thump_ **

**_Thump_ **

“Good morning.”

Keith turned his head. His vision was blurry, and he had to squint, but he could just make out Shiro’s broad form. It was hard to tell, but it looked like he was drinking coffee and...maybe reading a magazine? Or a book?

Keith ran his hand over his face and let out a breath, eyes sliding closed. If Shiro wasn’t worried, he could relax. “Where am I?”

Shiro clicked his tongue. There was irritation there, but only a little bit. Shiro was still as gentle and caring as ever. “Still can’t remember, huh?”

“Remember…?” Keith drew his eyebrows together.

_Pain, bells, Lance—_

“You’ve woken up a few times,” said Shiro. “The first two, you weren’t verbal, and you needed help eating. The third time, you could talk, a little. You stuttered, and you struggled to find words. Struggled even more to remember what we were talking about. You asked me to repeat myself so many times I lost count. Last time we talked, you were mostly coherent, so I thought maybe you’d be able to remember it. Apparently not.”

A warm hand brushed Keith’s hair away from his face and landed on his temple.

“Keith, you’re in the hospital. You were attacked on your way home from work, got stabbed, and instead of using a payphone to call for an ambulance, you decided to drive home. You lost a _lot_ of blood, and due to a lack of oxygen to your brain, you slipped into a coma.”

“Coma…” Keith grunted. “How long…?”

“Just for a few hours,” assured Shiro. “It wasn’t like it is in the movies. But recovery’s been a lot longer.” His hand swept once more across Keith’s brow. “You’re lucky to be alive. If Matt hadn’t found you…”

“Matt?”

“The guy I told you about, remember?” Shiro’s hand trailed through Keith’s hair. “The one I invited over for dinner the day you were attacked? I went out for groceries so I could at least _try_ to make something, and he got to our apartment before I made it back. He saw the trail of blood, followed it, and found you.”

Keith opened his eyes and found Shiro smiling at him.

“He saved your life, Keith. And not just by being in the right place at the right time and knowing CPR so he could keep your heart beating until the ambulance arrived, but he also insisted on paying your medical bills.”

Keith furrowed his brow. “You’re serious?”

“I am,” said Shiro. “Matt’s...shockingly generous.”

“No kidding,” murmured Keith. “You really know how to pick ‘em… How does Matt have that kind of money?”

Shiro shrugged, a smile on his lips. “I have no idea. I didn’t think it was my place to ask. I’m still absorbing the fact that he’s the reason you’re alive right now. That he was willing to do so much despite not knowing you and barely knowing me. It was such a close call, Keith…”

He bent down, and Keith closed his eyes again as he felt Shiro’s lips on his forehead.

“I could have lost you all over again.”

“I’m not going anywhere…”

“You were legally dead for a few minutes,” said Shiro, “so I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” His fingers ran again through Keith’s hair. “But you hung in there. Apparently, even after you technically died, you came right back the second the EMT resumed chest compressions.

“It was like your soul was chained in place by something, just waiting for your body to check all the boxes it needed to connect with it again.”

* * *

Lance woke in Hunk’s arms. Again.

He couldn’t sleep alone. Hadn’t for two nights now. He’d tried, the night before, but when he tried…

When he tried, he felt Keith looking at him from the mirror. 

Hand outstretched, like he was begging Lance to take it.

Eyes...vacant.

So he went back to Hunk’s bed, tears in his eyes once more, and Hunk welcomed him back with a gentle hand, coming through the way he always did when push came to shove.

It didn’t make any sense. Lance couldn’t find _one inkling_ of sense in it. He barely knew Keith. They’d only actually spoken a handful of times.

He knew watching Keith— Seeing—

...He knew watching anyone bleed out like that would leave a scar.

Death was...hard to deal with.

But it didn’t feel like just anyone dying. Lance wasn’t convinced watching even Marco or Luis die in front of him would feel...like _that._

And sure, he wasn’t as close to them as he was to his sisters, but they were still his _brothers,_ and Keith was _no one._

So why did Lance feel like Keith had taken all the threads that held Lance’s body together with him when he left? Why did Lance feel his seams had split wide open, spilling all his insides into a puddle on the floor? He hadn’t even known Keith a year prior! He wasn’t vital!

Or...at least, he wasn’t _supposed_ to be.

“The bake sale’s today,” mumbled Hunk, still thick with sleep.

“Shit…” breathed Lance.

“...You’re not up to it, are you?”

“I can be.” Lance forced himself to put his face in his hands. “I… I can be.”

“You don’t have to be.” Hunk sat up beside him. “We can call it off.”

“No, we can’t.” Lance glared into the blankets bunched around his legs. “We can’t just ditch the film festival. We’ll get a reputation. Besides, we need to fund Pidge’s open-reel tape addiction.”

Hunk fell quiet. Just for a moment. Just to think.

“Okay,” he said eventually. “How about this? _I_ do the bake sale by myself—”

“I don’t want to be left alone,” said Lance. “That’s worse.”

“Which is why I _nicely_ ask Allura if she can postpone her date.”

“What?” Lance looked over his shoulder. “No, you can’t— She’s going to think I’m just faking this to make her pay attention to me instead of Lotor.”

Hunk’s eyes softened. “No, she won’t. You’re still her friend, Lance. And she’s always loved you, even if it wasn’t in all the ways you wanted. She’ll want to make sure you’re okay. Just like I would. Or Pidge.” He leaned closer and nudged Lance with the side of his arm. “Like, just because she’s not your girlfriend doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about you, Lance.”

Lance averted his eyes. On some level, yeah, he knew that, but...he’d already dragged Hunk into a problem he couldn’t explain. He didn’t want to bother Allura, too. Especially if it meant dragging her attention away from someone who made her happy.

“Come on.” Hunk stepped down from the bed. “We’ve got a breakfast to eat and a super cool friend who loves you, like, _a whole lot_ to call.”

“...Yeah.” Lance closed his eyes and took a slow, steadying breath through his nose. “Yeah. You’re right.”

Though he doubted Allura could help any more than Hunk had. She’d want to know what was going on, even more than Hunk had, and… How was Lance supposed to explain why he’d asked her to call off her date when the only part he understood was something she’d never believe?

But if it was between finding something to tell Allura, being left alone for hours, or calling off the bake sale altogether, Lance knew Hunk’s idea was the best one they were going to have.

So he picked himself up, followed Hunk out of his bedroom, and got ready for breakfast.

* * *

Keith looked at himself in the mirror.

It had been a struggle to make it to the restroom. Apparently, language and motor skills often...underperformed after a person emerged from a coma. Even a short one. Keith knew he was lucky to not need intense physical therapy just to make it out of bed, but he still felt helpless. Like he wouldn’t be able to protect himself if someone broke into his room with a knife.

His legs shook beneath him. His heart pounded.

Leaning against the sink, Keith raised a hand to his own reflection, to the pale skin and the tired eyes looking back at him.

For an instant, he half-expected Lance to appear, looking back. But Lance was back at home. Even if he wanted to visit Keith in the hospital, he couldn’t. The hospital Keith was in wasn’t guaranteed to exist in Lance’s future, and if it did, Lance wouldn’t know what room Keith was in. And what was Keith supposed to do? Ask Shiro to call him on the phone? Tell him to come up to a room that was probably occupied by someone else to use their bathroom mirror?

Keith…

Keith didn’t make many friends.

Yumi was great. Shiro was his brother. But _friend_ was a word Keith struggled to use with...anyone.

And he wasn’t sure he wanted to call Lance his friend yet. Not exactly. But Keith still found himself missing Lance’s odd, loud, easily-distracted, too-personal companionship all the same. 

He hadn’t even known Lance that long, but in a strange way, he sort of missed him.

Keith’s legs shook beneath him.

His heart pounded.

He returned to his bed, hand pressed to his chest.

* * *

Lance’s cup was set down in front of him on Allura’s coffee table. Sunlight poured in through her sheer, blue curtains, catching on the verdant plants in her every corner. The television was off, reflecting only Lance, borrowed blanket draped around his shoulders like a cape.

Allura herself sank into the couch beside Lance, a cup of tea identical to Lance’s cradled in her hands, legs tucked close to her chest.

“So,” she said gently. 

Lance leaned forward until his elbows hit his knees. His eyes caught onto the bottom edge of the mug he’d been offered, the point where it met the coaster beneath it. He knew what Allura was about to ask. He’d been trying to think of an answer since he woke up. _Trying._ But his brain wasn’t cooperating. All he could think about was vacant eyes and an outstretched hand.

Prepared or not, the question still came.

“What’s happened?” Allura stayed on her end of the couch, utterly still, as if afraid of breaking the walls Lance had put up around himself. “Hunk said you had some sort of a panic attack, and I can understand how that might be exhausting, but that was days ago, and you seem deeper than exhausted. I’m willing to believe that, perhaps, it was a panic attack, but I’m also inclined to believe that panic was triggered by something external. Spontaneous panic wouldn’t last this long, I don’t think. So what _is_ going on, Lance?”

“I… Um—”

A tear rolled down Lance’s cheek, one he hadn’t even felt welling, and he quickly wiped it away with the cuff of his jacket sleeve, turning his face away from Allura in the hopes that she hadn’t already seen him crying.

Talking was hard. Opening up was hard. But Allura was one of the strongest, most stubborn people Lance had ever met. She wouldn’t let Lance go without an answer. Lance had to think of something.

“...A friend of mine...got hurt. Bad.”

Lance sensed surprise from Allura. He couldn’t really explain how he knew she was surprised. She hadn’t really moved, or spoken, and he couldn’t see her face. But somehow, in the time since he and Allura had met, all that staring at her must have clued him in on how she expressed her emotions on some subliminal level.

“Which friend?” she asked softly.

“No one you know,” said Lance. “He… I met him online.” Good of an excuse as anything, right? “I’ve… I’ve only been talking to him for a couple of weeks. But I’ve known _about_ him for a lot longer. He…” Lance covered his eyes with a hand. He was normally a smoother liar. What happened? “...I’ve been lurking on his Tumblr for the past year and impulsively sent him an ask and we’ve been talking ever since. But like— Allura, I don’t know what happened, he just— He just walked in one day and—”

“Walked in?” Allura set her cup aside and leaned in closer. “Into your room?”

“I— No.” Lance shook his head and pressed his face into his hands. Too much. Not careful enough. He took a deep breath and tried to settle his rushing mind. “No, he— Video chat. Video call. Discord.”

“He called you on Discord…” Allura inched closer. “Did he get hurt during the call, or was he already hurt when he called?”

Lance pressed his hands into his eyes and took a deep, shaking breath. “He— He was already— I mean, what did he think I could do!?” Lance threw his hands down, and they hit his own legs with a loud slap. “Like— Like how was I gonna help?! I’m over here and he’s over there and— And I don’t even _know_ him, and— There was so much fucking— I…”

Another shuddering breath tore itself from Lance’s lungs. A sob. He looked at Allura, as if _she_ could help _him,_ and she looked back, blue eyes wide, confused, concerned.

“Lance—”

“I-I-I’ve never seen that much blood…”

Allura’s hands reached out to cradle Lance’s face in her hands, the sides of her long, manicured thumbnails brushing along his cheeks.

“Is he _okay?_ ” she asked firmly, all about action, the tangible, what can be done.

And Lance, who could barely think straight enough to offer her his emotions, for the first time, pulled away from her touch.

“I— Someone came in and found him, but I don’t—”

Lance pulled Allura’s hands down, holding onto her wrists far tighter than he meant to, but he couldn’t let go.

“I-I-I don’t think so.” He swallowed. His throat was dry. He took a breath, sharp, too deep, stinging, gasping.

“I’m not supposed to _feel this way,_ ” said Lance. “Right? _Right?_ I didn’t even _know_ him.”

“Lance...”

"He's supposed to be some guy I just talked to a few times! Why should I care of he's— _You know?!_ "

Allura, strong as she was, broke free of Lance’s grip to hold his hands in her own.

“Darling, why on earth _wouldn’t_ you feel this way? That would be traumatizing for anyone.”

Lance pursed his lips. Any other day, he'd care that Allura had just called him _darling,_ that she was holding his hands while he did. But god, all Lance could think about was _Keith._

Allura climbed to her feet, pulling Lance up with her.

“Come on,” she said sternly. “Perhaps Pidge can be persuaded to alter their agenda for today.”

* * *

Keith eyed the phone at his bedside.

Classic 500-type model. Rotary. Mint green. Probably at least fifteen years old. Shiro had one just like it in his bedroom. Keith could guess it was standard for each room in the hospital. Like he was at a hotel.

Shiro’s words rang through his head, echoing like a voice rolling across the walls of a cave.

_You should really call him._

And Shiro was right. He should.

It was just hard to get up the courage to talk to someone he’d never spoken to. Someone who’d saved his life despite being a complete stranger.

Keith tapped the number written in the margins of his journal with his pencil, rocking it back and forth across his index finger like a metronome.

**_Tap. Tap. Tap._ **

_Fuck it._

Keith closed his journal and set it aside, reaching for the mint green type-500 at his bedside.

Entering the number was agonizingly slow. Every number dialed was deliberate and patient, not at all like pressing buttons on the keypad of the kitchen phone at home. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like, using a rotary phone like the one his parents had.

At least that was a comfort to know.

Last number entered, Keith raised the receiver to his ear and waited.

It rang once.

Twice.

On the third ring, he heard a click, and a nasally, but friendly-sounding voice appeared on the other end.

“ _Hello?_ ”

“Uh, hi.” Keith cleared his throat. “Is this Matt Holt?”

“ _Keith!_ ” That friendly voice laughed happily. “ _Man, it’s so good to hear from you! How are you feeling?_ ”

Keith hesitated. How could Matt tell who he was right away? He supposed it made sense that Matt would _expect_ him to call, but…

Well, maybe he just assumed correctly.

“I’m… I’m good.” Keith leaned back until his spine hit the bed. “I’m okay. Shiro gave me your number.”

“ _Yeah, I figured._ ” Matt laughed again. “ _I mean, unless you have some kind of ESP you wanted to tell me about. So why did you want to talk to me?_ ”

“Um…” Keith tugged at the spiral cord lying across his chest. “I wanted to thank you. For everything. Saving me. The hospital bills. All of it.”

“ _Aw, Keith, you don’t have to thank me for that. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. I mean, not that I’d want to have to…_ ”

“I still wanted to thank you,” said Keith.

“ _Well, thanks accepted,_ ” said Matt. “ _Really, though, it was no big deal. But hey, while I have you…_ ”

Keith sat up again. Something about the way he said that… “Yeah?”

“ _There’s something I’d like to ask. It’s kind of weird, but...indulge me, okay?_ ”

Keith gripped a fistful of his sheets. The phone receiver shook in his hand. Why was he so nervous? “Okay…”

“ _Well, when I got to your apartment, and I found the trail of blood, I followed it to your room. At first, I thought it might have been Shiro. Just— Just because, you know, he was on my mind? But then I found you, in your own bedroom. I just thought that was a weird place to go if you were in trouble. Why there? Why not, I don’t know, lie down in the hallway or something where a good samaritan could find you or something?_ ”

Keith’s shoulders tensed. He couldn’t even remember going to his room. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I lost a lot of blood. Maybe I just wanted to go somewhere that felt familiar.”

“ _Okay,_ ” said Matt, skepticism in his voice. “ _Just one more thing, then. I don’t know if you even remember doing this, but I might as well ask._

“ _Why were you reaching for your mirror?_ ”

Keith blanched. His stomach did three flips and landed somewhere in his ribcage.

In a panic, he slammed the receiver back on the hook.

Instantly, Keith felt guilty. Shiro really liked Matt, and Matt had done so much for him. Hanging up on him was a terrible idea.

But that question scared him.

He’d reached out for the mirror? For _Lance?_

_Why?_ What did he think _Lance_ could do to help?

Keith clutched the front of his hospital gown.

His chest felt like it was on fire, like someone was throwing a burning coal against the back of his sternum over and over again.

**_THUMP_ **

**_THUMP_ **

**_THUMP_ **

He swallowed, hard. Mouth dry.

A nurse walked through the door, and as she scolded him for getting himself worked up, his heartbeat slowed, burned less.

But still, it beat.

**_Thump_ **

**_Thump_ **

**_Thump_ **

* * *

“I’m sorry, Lance, but without a name or even a _username,_ there’s _literally nothing_ I can do.”

Lance shrank into his shoulders, feeling small under even Pidge’s diminutive gaze.

“Yeah, I figured.”

Not that Pidge would be able to do anything for him anyway. If Keith _had_ died, it would have been decades prior. And Pidge could probably find that out faster than Lance was comfortable with, and that’d be a _lot_ to unpack. More than Lance was ready for.

And if Keith _did_ die...it wouldn’t matter anyway. Lance would never see him again.

“Lance…” Allura wrapped a gentle arm around Lance’s shoulders. “Why won’t you just tell us who he is?”

“If he’s a porn star or something, you know we’re not gonna care, right?” Pidge leaned back on the couch and crossed their arms. “Last time I checked, no one here’s a SWERF. Or homophobic. If you started following the guy because you collected pictures of his meat—”

“ _Pidge,_ ” sighed Allura, somehow both exasperated and gentle.

“It— It’s not like that.” Lance focused his gaze on the space in Allura’s carpet between his feet.“Just… I don’t want to invade his privacy. I’m not gonna dox him just because I’m worried.”

Allura rubbed his shoulder. “But you said his life could be in danger. And Pidge wouldn’t do anything _unsavory_ with whatever information they uncovered, would you, Pidge?”

“Probably.”

“ _Pidge._ ”

Pidge groaned. “I’m not going to sell his soul to an advertising company. I’m just going to see if he shows up in any hospital records. Or, you know...whether he’s been legally declared deceased.”

Lance ran his hands through his hair.

_Deceased._

That one little word felt like an anchor chained to his neck, dragging him down, down, _down._

Allura swirled soothing circles between Lance’s shoulder blades.

“I just think…” Lance ran his hand over his neck, as if he could feel the chains that pulled him down. “I think I should wait. A week or two. If he doesn’t get back, then he’s probably…” Lance leaned back, forcing Allura to take her arm away just so he could roll his eyes up to the ceiling and try to force his tears to dry before they fell. “Probably… Y-You know, right?”

Allura said nothing.

Pidge said nothing.

Lance took a trembling breath, and the lightest weight leaned into his chest.

Against his better judgment, Lance looked down, and there, wrapping tiny arms around him, head on his shoulder, was Pidge. They weren’t being sassy or sarcastic or aloof. They were just...hugging him.

“I’m sorry,” they muttered, and something about those words dragged the tears that hadn’t quite dried in Lance’s eyes down his cheeks.

Lance returned their weak embrace with an uncertain one of his own. “For what? I mean, it’s not _your_ fault my friend got hurt, right?”

Pidge pressed their face into the side of his chest. “I just—” They held onto Lance’s arm. “I wish this hadn’t happened to you. That’s all.”

Allura joined their embrace, her arms wrapping easily around the two of them. “Well...that’s what we’re here for,” she said softly. “So you don’t have to be alone when these things do happen.”

Lance closed his eyes. “Nothing happened to me. Something happened to _him._ I just… I-I just watched it happen.” He took a sharp breath. “I watched it happen, and I didn’t _do anything—_ ”

“ _Lance!_ ” Pidge ripped out of his arms and grabbed his face. “There’s nothing you _could_ do. All right? Sometimes—” They clenched their teeth and took a harsh breath. “Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do. Sometimes, you just have to let things happen, and you minimize the damage, and you pick up the pieces you couldn’t save once it’s all over.” Their eyes darkened, boring straight into Lance’s. “Sometimes, bad things happen, and all you can do is wait for them to get better. But you have to take care of yourself until that happens, so when it does, you’re strong enough to keep moving. Okay?” They gripped his shoulders and shook them once, fiercely. “Right now, it’s Lance time. You can worry about your friend once you’ve got something to worry about. Okay?”

Lance raised his eyebrows and leaned back from Pidge. He’d never seen them quite so... _intense._

“ _Okay?_ ” they repeated.

“I— Yeah!” Lance swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

“Good,” said Allura. “Well, then…”

She stood from the couch and brushed off her skirt.

“Who wants to rewatch all our old music videos and make fun of how Pidge’s hair looked when it was long?”

“Me.” Pidge propped an elbow up on Lance’s shoulder, giving him a full view of the bandages wrapped around their hand.

Lance worked up a smile. He wasn’t really in the mood, but he wasn’t really in the mood for _anything,_ save for obsessing over Keith, and...and maybe Pidge was right. Maybe he did just need to breathe for a while and accept that...there was nothing he could do. And wait for things to get better.

“Sure,” he said, his voice quiet to his own ear. “I’m down.”

But his heart wasn’t in it.

**_Thump._ **

**_Thump._ **

**_Thump._ **

* * *

**_click_ **

“Well, that’s not suspicious…”

Matt lowered his phone back onto the hook and leaned back in his desk chair. Absently, he reached for the velvet satchel lying beside him. He rolled it around between his hands, pushing and pulling the contents of the bag, rotating them around each other like binary stars caught in a pocket dimension. Or like two planets, caught in each other’s gravity.

He frowned, opened the bag, and pulled out the gleaming, golden stones. They lit up his dark, tiny office space like cool, hand-held candle flames, bouncing their warm light off the walls and back onto his face.

He scowled at the one in his left hand, then at his right. When he brought them together, their flat ends lined up like puzzle pieces, perfectly symmetrical, one a perfect reflection of the other.

He brought them down, still joined together, until they lied flat on his desk.

“It couldn’t be _literal,_ could it? And if so…”

He pulled the right piece up, away from the other, and raised it to the window, until he could see the moon shining through its golden filter.

“...Who could be on the other side?”

_Turn around_

_Look at what you see_

_In her face_

_The mirror of your dreams_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote an entire fic between my last update and this one. Sorry about that. But it's there, if you want to read a somewhat dark, Christmas-themed fic.
> 
> [It's right here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28101801)
> 
> [My Other Fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206631/chapters/61094299) (not the one linked above)  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/youareinacoma?lang=en)   
> [Discord](https://discord.gg/BtX9duD)


	8. Rain

Hunk pulled his jacket up around his neck and shivered at the chilly breeze. It was much too early in the spring to be outside for longer than a few minutes. And the worst part was he didn’t even want to go inside. He just wanted someone to complain about it to.

He peeked out from underneath the awning that protected his booth. It was sunny. Blue skies as far as the eye could see. Only a few scattered clouds to speak of. But despite that, Hunk still got the funny feeling it was about to rain.

"Excuse me."

Hunk's attention was abruptly pulled back to the present as a girl with long, blond pigtails peered at the pie slices with narrowed eyes.

Right. He was supposed to be working.

"Uh, hi! Can I help you?"

"Yes," said the girl. "How much are the pecan slices? I can't seem to find a price tag."

"Oh, shoot, did it blow away?" Hunk reached into his apron pocket and pulled out a stack of white index cards and a permanent marker. With a flourish, he wrote a big **_$2.00_** and set the card down on the side of the table with the pie slices.

"They're all two dollars," he explained. "Regardless of flavor."

"Fabulous!" The girl clapped her hands together. "Pecan is my brother's favorite, and he's supposed to meet me with my parents today. I've been abroad, so it's been ages since I've seen him. I wanted to surprise him. Can I assume you're a good enough baker not to disappoint him?"

"I'm gonna be honest with you," said Hunk. "I'm not confident about a lot of things. But this? _Oh,_ yeah." He pressed his hands flat to the table. "I have never gotten a single complaint about my cooking. _Ever._ "

"Really?" The girl raised a hand to her chin, one fair eyebrow raised. "Not _ever?_ "

"Well—" Hunk rubbed the back of his head. "Well, I mean— When I was _learning,_ yeah. My big sister was a hell of a critic. But, eventually, I got even _her_ approval."

The blond girl lit up. "That's a _much_ better answer. I don't trust anyone who says they've always been good at something. No one ever really starts out good at something, do they?"

"Good point," said Hunk. "I guess if people always said I was good at cooking, they would have had to have been lying for at least part of it. And then I guess I wouldn't know when they stopped. If ever. Huh." Hunk furrowed his brow, and his eyes wandered to the clouds above the trees. " _Huh._ " It was funny how just that little confirmation gave him a burst of confidence.

He wondered if something like that could help Lance.

"So, I've changed my mind," said the blond girl, snapping Hunk out of his thoughts. "I don't want _one_ slice of pie. I'd like four."

"Sure!" Hunk grinned. "All pecan?"

"No," said the girl. "Two pecans, a peach, and...a cherry, I think."

"Coming right up," said Hunk, already bending down to grab the boxes behind the table.

"Oh, and one more thing?"

"Sure!" Hunk stood up straight, boxes in hand. "Fire away!"

"I'm _very talkative,_ " said the girl. "Which means if I decide I like how the pie tastes, I'm going to be telling _everyone I see._ Be prepared for a whole lot of business, Mr. Master Baker. If you're as good as you say you are, then you're about to be overrun."

Hunk stood up straight and saluted the woman. "Yes, Ma'am!"

Despite the blonde's conviction, Hunk doubted the activity at his table would change all that much, and he wasn't prepared for any sort of significant increase in traffic.

He should have been.

"Do you have free samples?"

"Sorry, I don't!"

"How are your cupcakes?"

"Pretty good, but I only have yellow and chocolate!"

"Do you have crepes?"

" _What—?_ Uh, no? Sorry?"

"What kinds of cookies do you have?"

"A lot! Name a cookie and I probably have some around here somewhere!"

"How about peanut butter and bacon?"

"Um. Fresh out."

By the time the chaos had ended and the line Hunk had accumulated at his little booth outside the theater had come to an end, he was exhausted, but the green lockbox he kept behind his table was a lot heavier than it had been when he arrived. He'd made quite the profit from having sold almost everything. Even Lance's cookies were sold out. All Hunk had left were a few snickerdoodles he’d tried a new recipe for and the less popular bread. Savory didn't sell quite as well as sweet, it seemed.

Well, if Hunk wound up having to finish off his own bread later, he wouldn't complain. He liked his own cooking, too. And he knew Lance did.

Besides, the amount he'd managed to sell was still enough to get the people selling film festival merch across the way _glaring_ at him. That was even more satisfying than the lockbox full of cash.

Hunk smiled cheerfully and wiggled his fingers in a wave, his smile only widening when one of the sellers across the way got up to refold the shirts on the wireframe shelves, presumably just so he could turn his back on Hunk instead of having to face him.

Petty? Yes, Hunk was. And proudly. He had no regrets.

To his right, the door to the theater was thrown open, and a group of four emerged like the eruption of a volcano.

"We shouldn't even be here. We were supposed to meet with—"

"Yeah, and they understood why we had to reschedule!"

"Postpone. We had to _postpone._ And it was only supposed to be for a couple of hours."

"But they _understood!_ They have their hobbies, too, you know!"

"And they've never let those hobbies get in the way of what's more important."

"Come _on._ " The girl at the head of the group shoved her friend in the chest, her dark ponytail bouncing. "You act like it's the end of the world."

Her friend stopped right in front of Hunk's table and glared at her from behind his coiffed bangs. " _Rizavi,_ " he said sternly.

" _Griffin,_ " she said back in the same tone.

They both took a sharp breath through their noses, deep enough to puff up their chests. Behind them, their friends exchanged an exasperated look, the same kind of look Hunk tended to share with Pidge or Allura when Lance was on his bullshit. That kind of look that said, loud enough to hear without sound, _"Here we go again."_ Hunk got the feeling they knew _exactly_ what was going to happen.

And it was exactly what _happened._

"EVERY TIME! EVERY FUCKING TIME WE—"

"OH, LIKE YOU DIDN'T WANT—"

"—TIME AND A PLACE—"

"—STICK OUT OF YOUR ASS—"

"—IMPORTANT THING WE'LL EVER—"

Hunk found himself sighing along with the arguing duo's friends. There was something familiar about a fight like that. It seemed like something Lance would get himself into, though Hunk couldn't think of any specific examples of Lance getting so heated with another person.

Hunk lowered his head and busied himself with arranging his table to more evenly space the baked goods he had left to sell. He had no desire to leave the area. The drama was glorious, even if Hunk couldn't quite put together what it was about, but the last thing he wanted was to get pulled _into_ the conflict. No, Hunk was satisfied with just moving the plates of individually packaged bread slices and sneaking surreptitious glances at a couple of increasingly red faces.

He moved the sourdough farther to the left, pulled the pumpernickel to the middle of the table, and...

_Oh._

Found another hand set gently on top of the pumpernickel plate.

Hunk followed the attached arm up to find a face looking at him. One of the two people who had exchanged looks before their friends exploded in the middle of the courtyard. The tall, slightly intimidating one.

He held up two fingers, and a brief confusion flashed through Hunk's mind before it struck him what the guy was getting at.

' _Two slices?_ ' mouthed Hunk.

The guy nodded, and Hunk reached under the table for one of his paper bags.

The guy caught his eye again as he slipped the two plastic-covered slices of bread into the bag.

This time, he held up four fingers, and he pointed to the plate of cookies to Hunk's right.

Hunk held up a thumb and reached for his tongs.

As he slid the cookies one by one into the bag, the tall guy reached into his back pocket for a wallet.

He dug a ten out of the folds and laid it on the table.

Hunk bent down for the lockbox and pulled out four ones for his change, but when he held out his hand, the guy shook his head and waved his hand in a shooing sort of motion.

Hunk raised an eyebrow and held up six fingers, awkwardly pinching the ones between the fingers on his right hand and his palm so he could hold out his thumb.

The guy fixed him with an unimpressed look and pushed the ten closer.

Okay. Intimidating, but generous. Hunk could definitely handle that.

He folded the top of the guy's bag and pushed it across to him with a smile.

The guy nodded gratefully, took his bag, and walked past his friends.

Still arguing, they followed behind him, apparently subconsciously driven to stay with the group.

Hunk took his eyes off the four and gathered the ten with the ones to put them all safely in the lockbox with the rest of his profits. That done, Hunk lifted his head again and found his curiosity pulling him back toward the direction of the drama.

When he looked, however, it wasn't the still-ongoing argument that grabbed his attention. It was the _guy._

The pumpernickel and snickerdoodles guy, the guy who just gave him a 60% tip for no reason, the guy who held a paper bag in one hand and a cookie with a single bite taken out of it in the other.

He was standing utterly still, head lowered and tilted slightly, toward the cookie. His friends had overtaken him on their way to the parking lot, seemingly unaware that he'd stopped, save for the girl with freckles who was watching him with no visible expression on her face.

The guy didn't seem to notice he was being watched, either by Hunk _or_ by the girl. He was just...looking at his cookie.

He took another bite and chewed it so slowly Hunk could follow the movement of his jaw from what must have been ten yards away.

Then, so quickly it made Hunk flinch, he whipped around, eyes finding Hunk as sure as Robin Hood's arrow.

And that thing? That thing Hunk had been thinking earlier, about how the guy was sort of intimidating?

Yeah, he was just gonna go ahead and bring that "sort of" up to a "very". The guy was very, _very_ intimidating, and _Oh-god-oh-god-oh-god—_

"Kinkade's leaving," announced the blond, freckled girl loudly, driving home the reality of Hunk's impending death.

His two arguing friends abruptly stopped arguing. Hunk heard one of them say, "Kinkade, _where_ are you going?" but Hunk couldn't even spare a thought to the fact that they'd _actually managed to stop arguing_ because he knew _exactly_ where Kinkade was going and Kinkade was _definitely_ "going" to murder a man.

Him.

Hunk.

He was the man.

The one Kinkade was going to murder.

Oh, he _knew_ he shouldn't have told that blond lady from before that he'd never had anyone complain about his cooking. He was about to get a _big_ complaint in a _big_ way and they were going to have that complaint etched into his _grave._

Kinkade stopped in front of Hunk's table and shoved the cookie into his personal space like an accusing finger, so close to Hunk's nose he would have had to have crossed his eyes to see it. That is, if he could look away from Kinkade's unreadable frown.

"What did you put in this cookie?" demanded Kinkade.

"Uh—" Hunk's voice cracked, and he cleared his throat before trying again. "C...Cookie stuff?"

"Let me rephrase that," said Kinkade. "What does this have in it that snickerdoodles don't normally have?"

Hunk's normally-clever brain tripped over itself to try to make sense of the question. "I— I don't— What d'you— Huh?"

"You did make the cookie, right?" asked Kinkade. "Not someone you work for or something?"

"No, it was me—"

"Then what did you put in it?"

"Uh— Uh— _Uh—_ Nutmeg! Nutmeg? Mixed in with the cinnamon on the outside?"

"I know what nutmeg tastes like," said Kinkade. "I can taste the nutmeg. What else?"

"Oh." Hunk's heart beat in double-time. He'd gotten so flustered he almost forgot why his snickerdoodles were less popular than the rest of his cookies. "Right. That. I put a little sourdough starter in the recipe."

Kinkade's eyes widened. "Sourdough starter? In a cookie?"

"Just a little!" assured Hunk. "I thought the savory, tangy flavor might go nice with a snickerdoodle, like cream of tartar, on top of making it kind of, you know, lighter? And I liked how it turned out, but I guess I'm the only one who did because they didn't sell all that well. Do you want a refund? Because—"

"Refund? I don't want a _refund._ " Kinkade's eyes brightened. Like the _sun._ Like he was grinning from ear to ear despite the stagnant downward curve of his lips. "This is the best cookie I've ever tasted. I'll pay for the rest of your stock _and_ your recipe if you're willing to sell it."

Hunk froze. His still-stuttering brain came to a complete stop.

Then it chugged like the start of an unreliable car.

_What?_

_Oh._

_What?_

_Oh._

_...Wait, what?_

_Oh._

_Oh!_

A laugh burst out of Hunk. Not an amused laugh, but more like a messy, sticky mixture of surprise and flattered joy and relief that Kinkade _hadn't_ come marching down the path to kill him and _excitement_ from knowing Kinkade liked the recipe that much.

"Yeah, sure! I mean, if you want to buy the rest of my cookies I won't stop you. But the recipe's yours if you want it. You don't have to pay for that."

This time, Kinkade's smile reached beyond his eyes. It tugged the corners of his mouth into a wide, pearly grin. "You're serious?"

"Yeah!" Hunk reached back into his apron for his marker and his notecards again. Cheerfully, he rattled off the recipe without needing to write. It came as easily to him as writing the alphabet. It was all intuitive.

"Like, normally I don't give my recipes out, just because they tend to get a _little_ complicated for the average baker and I don't want them, y'know, coming back to yell at me later when it doesn't work out. But I can tell you know what you're talking about. And if you _do_ have trouble..."

At the bottom of the recipe, Hunk scribbled a little extra note, and with a warm smile, he passed it to Kinkade.

Kinkade raised it to his eyes and caught the last line.

"You're giving me your phone number?"

"Yeah, sure." Hunk shrugged. "Just in case you get stuck. Or, you know, in case you want someone to talk to about baking sometime."

Kinkade's smile softened and he tucked the notecard away in his breast pocket. "I might take you up on that offer." He held out his hand. "I'm Kinkade, by the way. Ryan Kinkade."

Hunk eagerly shook his hand. "Hunk Garrett. Or, well, actually, my real name's Tsuyoshi. I don't know why I told you that. You didn't need to know that. No one calls me that. Not even my parents. Am I rambling? Because I feel like I'm rambling and I usually only do that when I'm, like, super anxious, and I'm not anxious at all right now. I'm actually in a pretty good mood. I should probably just stop talking now. Yeah."

Kinkade laughed, but not in a way that made Hunk want to crawl under the table and beat himself up for the next hour or two about the fool he made of himself in front of a total stranger. It was just friendly and inviting and...huh. Not intimidating at all, actually. Suddenly, Hunk wasn't sure how he'd _ever_ seen this guy as intimidating. He just seemed...

_...Cool._

No sooner than that thought had crossed through Hunk's mind, a splash of water hit his wrist.

Then another struck the red awning over his head with a _thump._

And another landed in Kinkade's hair, jostling his short locs.

He tilted his head back to squint at the sky, and as if in response to getting caught, that sky opened up, and a hundred thousand of the same raindrops came pouring down.

A surprised shout broke out of Hunk before he could even think about stopping it.

"Sun-shower," mused Kinkade, narrowing his eyes even further.

"From _what cloud?_ " cried Hunk, no less surprised. All he could see from under his awning was blue. "Ah, jeez. Hold on, I'll get those cookies in a bag for you." Hunk reached behind the table for his paper bags. "Get you out of the rain."

"You know what?" Kinkade lowered his gaze from the rain to meet Hunk's eyes again. "Go ahead and put the rest of your bread in there, too."

" _What—?!_ " Hunk fumbled the paper bag and narrowly managed to catch it before it hit the grass. "Dude, that's gonna be, like, forty bucks!"

Kinkade shrugged. "I have forty bucks."

"And you want to spend it all on _bread._ "

Kinkade's smile came back. "If it's as good as your cookies, you know it."

Another laugh broke out of Hunk. "You know, I was totally prepared to call the girl who told half the film festival about my pies my best customer today, but I think you just flew past her."

Hunk managed to fit the rest of his wares in a single bag—though it was so full he could barely fold the top down—and handed it to Kinkade with his exact fee.

Kinkade paid him without flinching, and dug a cookie out of his first bag, and popped it between his teeth.

With one last grateful wave, he turned away and rejoined his friends.

Distantly, he heard the white guy with the fancy bangs ask, "What the hell was that?"

And he heard Kinkade answer through a full mouth, "What? I liked the cookie."

"Yeah," said the girl with glasses. "But you _never_ talk to strangers that much."

"Mmh," said Kinkade, barely loud enough for Hunk to hear.

Hunk watched him walk away with his friends, rain soaking into their clothes, and only once they had left did he realize he had no reason to hang around any longer.

He reached into his pocket for his phone.

_Coming home soon,_ he typed. _Sold out early. Just gotta pack up. See you when I get back, buddy._

Twenty miles away, a discarded phone rang on a coffee table, unanswered, its owner sandwiched between two of his friends, all three pairs of eyes fixed on the window beside the couch they shared, watching the shining raindrops slide down the glass, each sun-drenched drop gathering speed as it found other drops to cling to.

Farther away than miles could quantify, a boy's legs collapsed beneath him as he tried to walk across a short length of padded walkway even a toddler should have been able to cross without incident. He gripped the metal rails on either side of himself, ignoring his stern, white-haired nurse's chiding as his eyes fixed onto the hospital window, where rain raised a noisy chorus against the windowpane.

In a too-empty apartment, in a too-empty bedroom, a lonely brother stopped scrubbing at the faint shadow of a bloodstain he still hadn't been able to lift completely.

He looked to the window, and he watched the rain gather in the sunshine.

Four young people pushed their car further and further from the film festival they'd left early, each of them watching the rain-spattered windows by their seats in forlorn silence, save for the man in the driver's seat who glared through his windshield, rattling off a string of curses and I-told-you-sos.

A young man in a sweater and basketball shorts stood on the stoop leading to his front door, watching the rain pour from seemingly nowhere beyond the overhang above him.

Through the sunshine and the rain, he watched a perfect, brilliant, vibrant rainbow stretch across the sky. A beautiful sight. But he wasn't smiling.

His jaw was set. His teeth were clenched. If he smoked, he would have been smoking. If he was a violent man, he would have kicked something. If his past year hadn't hardened him, he would have been crying.

In place of all that, he spat out two bitter, angry, terrified words.

"Damn it..." He pressed his back to the door behind him and threw his head against it, hard enough to hurt. " _Damn it..._ "

The sun continued to shine, and the rain fell on and on.

* * *

Keith hovered outside of his bedroom door.

Two weeks seemed like it had passed in no time at all. Perhaps because his brain hadn't been healthy enough to remember much of it.

But he could walk again, mostly. He didn't feel like he needed the cane that was shoved at him, but fine, he could use it. And sure, he could take another week off work, even if he felt useless. And _yes, Shiro, he'd call if he needed anything._ He could do that, too.

But the one thing he couldn't do, the one thing he'd been avoiding all day, the one thing that kept him in the living room, on the couch, staring blankly at the TV without absorbing anything it showed him, was go into his room.

The one thing he couldn't do was face Lance.

He still wasn't sure what happened the day he got hurt. Matt found him in front of his mirror, but...was there anyone on the other side? Had Lance seen him get hurt? Or did Keith just disappear from his life one day, not to return for weeks?

Why did Keith seek Lance out in the first place?

And...why did the possibility, the very idea that Lance might not have even noticed Keith was gone _hurt?_

Keith ran his thumb along the cut on his waist. He still didn't understand how it all worked, how Lance could see him from the future. What if getting hurt somehow severed the connection? What if Keith felt it, somehow, and _that_ was why he was at the mirror when Matt found him? Would that be easier, because whatever difficult conversation was on the other side of Keith's bedroom door would never have to happen? Or would it be harder, because that would mean he'd never see...a near-stranger again?

Keith pressed his forehead to the door and took a deep breath through his nose.

It was just Lance. Just _Lance._ Worst-case scenario, he saw the blood and got freaked out, and Keith would have to assure him everything was fine.

It didn't _have_ to be awkward, did it?

Keith gripped his cane in his left hand and reached for the doorknob with his right.

There was nothing to be afraid of.

Keith twisted the doorknob, pushed, and stepped inside.

His eyes sought out his mirror immediately. He couldn't see anything, not from the angle he was at. But he could tell Lance was there. The mirror should have reflected the light from the hallway at Keith's back, and yet all Keith saw in the glass was darkness.

Was Lance asleep? No... The sun had gone down, but it wasn't all that late. Shiro had only just left for work an hour or so prior.

...But the only other possibility was that Lance was just sitting in the dark. Not even using his phone. That couldn't be right.

Keith closed the door behind himself, allowing himself to be swallowed by the darkness of his own bedroom.

"I'm fine, Hunk," came a weak voice. One that couldn't have belonged to Lance. It may have _sounded_ like Lance, but Lance didn't talk like that. "I'll eat later. I just need to be alone, okay?"

The thing that couldn't have been Lance took a slow, deep breath, and Keith took his cane off the floor to clutch it in his hands, rendering it purposeless, save for the comfort it gave him. But the cane was only a precaution, and Keith didn't need it to take a step closer to where that voice had come from.

Bit by bit, Keith's eyes adjusted to the darkness. And bit by bit, more of Lance's bedroom came into view.

And for as long as he could, Keith held onto denial, the certainty that he wasn't looking at what his eyes told him he was looking at, because it didn't make sense.

It was dark, and...he'd suffered minor brain damage. That was why Lance was lying on the floor next to a nonsensically long scarf and the discarded needles that stitched it together, like it had gotten away from him days ago and he'd never noticed how long it had gotten.

That was why he held the guitar he said he never used anymore, cradled it on his chest, one hand on the neck, one lying across the strings, as if he'd tried to play, but every note and melody he knew left him, and he'd frozen his hands in place before they plucked a single string.

That was why Lance had caught moonlight in a white, shining line leading from the corner of his eye to his ear.

That was why Lance was Lance, and not some tired impersonator that could mimic Lance's voice, but couldn't mimic _him._

That was why Keith felt so sad to see him that way.

Lance swallowed. Keith watched the shadows shift on his neck.

" _Hunk,_ " he said again. "I'm _fine._ "

"You don't look fine."

Keith's words hung in the air like a blade on a pendulum, swinging back and forth, dropping lower and lower until, at last, they struck.

Lance jolted upright. Keith could see his hands shake as he all but shoved his guitar off his lap and onto the floor with the too-long scarf.

The moonlight from the window illuminated only half of his face, carving out the slope of his nose and the soft bow of his lips and the curved, shining surface of his wide eyes. And Keith knew he must have seen the same in reverse, only half of his face. A face he knew without access to his reflection was unreadable. He'd always had trouble expressing himself. The more he felt, the harder it was to show. And he felt a lot, looking at Lance on the floor, crying for reasons Keith didn't understand.

They _were_ strangers, weren't they? Sure, Lance had known Keith for longer than Keith knew Lance, but the way Lance was looking at him—

"You're here," breathed Lance, his voice coming not from the mirror, but from the place where he sat more than thirty years in the future, at Keith's feet. So close, but completely out of Keith's reach. "You're... You're not a ghost or something, right? Like you're not—" Lance jumped to his feet, and Keith heard him an inch from his ear. "This is real, right?"

"...Yeah," said Keith, who wasn't sure what else to say.

“It— It’s _you._ ”

“It’s me.”

"You're alive?"

"I think so."

Lance pursed his lips. Those same lips trembled. For a fleeting few seconds, Keith thought Lance was going to yell at him, to rip into him for making Lance watch what Keith could now surmise Lance assumed to be a gruesome death.

But no screams came. No anger.

Just a single, choked sob, Keith's only warning before Lance turned and sprinted from the room, leaving Keith alone with his own dark reflection.

_**I am standing up at the water's edge in my dream** _

_**I cannot make a single sound as you scream** _

_**It can't be that cold, the ground is still warm to touch** _

_**We touch** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My Other Fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206631/chapters/61094299)  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/youareinacoma?lang=en)   
> [Discord](https://discord.gg/BtX9duD)


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